Contact:  Michael E. Sabones       FOR RELEASE
          Patrick J. Slattery      March 17, 1998
          
          

NORTH WEBSTER, Ind. - Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, the National Weather Service will flash a bit o the green over northern Indiana and northwest Ohio on March 17 - the green light to commission the new WSR-88D radar installed last year near North Webster and to make that office fully-functional.

"We've been bringing our staff in and getting ourselves accustomed to using the WSR-88D at this location," Meteorologist in Charge Mike Sabones said. "We've put the radar through its paces, become familiar with our coverage area, established contacts with county emergency management agencies, and, now, we're ready to become a complete forecast office just in time for severe weather season.

"Beginning today, this office has full responsibility for issuing severe weather warnings for northern Indiana, northwest Ohio, and southern Michigan. We will use the 88D as our source of radar data. We're ready to show the people what we can do. I think people will be more than satisfied."

The North Webster radar and forecast office were included in the Weather Service's nationwide radar network following a 1995 study of weather services done by the National Research Council for then Secretary of Commerce Ron Brown. Brown recommended to Congress that a weather forecast office and Doppler radar be located in northern Indiana. The state-of-the-art radar was installed in June 1997. Sabones and his staff have been operating the radar in a test and familiarization mode since then.

"We've done our tests and the radar has met every obstacle thrown at it," Sabones said. "We're ready to put it fully on-line and begin to provide forecasts and warnings from this office.

"I don't think the public will see much over-all change from the Fort Wayne and South Bend offices providing services, except in the advantages the WSR-88D gives us during severe weather."

Employing the final WSR-88D of the more than 120 units to become part of the nationwide network, the Northern Indiana forecast office takes over warning responsibility for 24 counties in northern Indiana, eight counties in northwest Ohio, and five counties in southwest Michigan. Those counties had been served by offices in Fort Wayne, South Bend, Indianapolis, Chicago, Cleveland and Wilmington, Ohio; and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Sabones and his staff are hardly finished with new experiences at North Webster. They have one have major step to complete yet: construction of the new forecast office building.

"The Weather Service originally planned to start construction last fall," Sabones said, "but a very intricate land acquisition process has delayed that. For a federal agency to acquire property from a state agency has not been an easy endeavor. The state of Indiana and at least three federal agencies have been involved in the process, so it's probably obvious that this land transfer would take time. We are nearing a resolution to the land transfer and expect to start construction on the new building this summer."

Construction will take about a year to complete, so the forecast staff will operate out of temporary facilities (two mobile homes) at the North Webster site in the interim.

"We may not look like much from the outside," Sabones said, "but we'll be polished on the inside. With the skill of this forecast staff and the capabilities of the WSR-88D, we're ready to provide better forecast and warning services than this area has ever had."

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