To see real-time radar images from the new Doppler station, visit http://tinyurl.com/pdndoppler1.
COPALIS CROSSING — The National Weather Service is now getting information from a new Doppler radar station in Grays Harbor County that reads weather west of the Olympic Mountains.
Spokesman Ted Buehner said the station near Copalis Crossing in northern Grays Harbor County was turned on Wednesday for a week’s worth of testing.
When it’s officially in service at the end of next week, forecasters said, the radar will give them a better look at incoming Pacific storms and improve predictions of damaging winds and rains.
The Olympic Mountains block the view of the Seattle area’s Doppler radar station on Camano Island.
The new radar station has dual-polarization technology that helps predict the intensity of storms by measuring them vertically as well as horizontally.
Weather radar stations at Camano Island, Spokane, Portland, Ore., and Pendleton, Ore., also are being upgraded. Buehner said Washington will be the first state in the nation with dual-polarization Doppler radar coverage.
The new coastal radar also will help forecasters better-determine wind speed and rainfall of incoming storms to give more accurate and timely warnings to residents.
The new domed station’s 125-mile radius atop Langley Hill will cover such West End towns as Forks, LaPush, Neah Bay and Clallam Bay-Sekiu — locations hidden from the Camano station by the towering Olympics.
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Mountlake Terrace, championed the coastal radar system for years and secured a $2 million down payment for the radar system in 2009.
An additional $7 million was included in the 2010 Consolidated Appropriations Act.