Weather radar to open

A technical glitch which cast a permanent forecast of rain near Albany should not be visible on local forecasts when the Bureau of Meteorology radar system is launched this month.
Albany’s weather radar has been out of action since February after it was switched off to upgrade forecast quality.
The radar is set to go green next week — 14 weeks after it was shut down.
A 12-week shut-off had been anticipated, but Bureau of Meteorology manager of real-time weather data services Neil Bennett said unexpectedly dry weather had delayed testing of new doppler technology.
He said the launch was now on track.
“A lack of rainfall during the final stages meant we were unable to get some real-time testing done for a period of time,” Mr Bennett said.
“But that has all been completed now and everything is looking good,” he said.

Once the radar was switched on, Mr Bennett said a permanent band of recorded rainfall west of Albany — visible on all 512km radars since the switch — would not be recorded from the Albany service.
That glitch, which suggested light rain stretching south-east from near Kojonup to Albany, was likely caused by interference from another radar.
“We suspect it may be due to wi-fi interference close to the Serpentine radar,” he said.
“When the Albany radar is back online, it’s not going to show this interference pattern unless people switch to the 520km composite (image).”
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