BOISE, Idaho (CBS2) — The National Weather Service in Boise is working on upgrading their weather radar and that all starts with moving one giant dome.
On Friday morning crews safely lifted the 8,000 pound radome into the air and brought it to the ground.
"The last time it wasn't on top of it was at the installation in 1995," said Travis Mayer with the National Weather Service in Boise.
Mayer says the main goal of the project is to replace the radar's pedestal.
"This isn't a technology upgrade," said Mayer. "We're still going to get the same data back at the weather office that we did before."
The pedestal holds the motors, which spin the radar's satellite dish and the one being replaced has been in service since it was originally installed 24 years ago.
"The pedestal replacement gives us the 20-year life going forward with the radar. It increases our reliability," said Mayer. "The systems have been breaking down across the country and with these new gears and motors it will increase the reliability of the system."
Reliability is important.
"The weather radar is used by the department of defense here in our area. The Department of Transportation, the FAA and the Department of Commerce. So all those users are really expecting that data to be on all the time," said Mayer.
This upgrade is one part of a multi year project to upgrade weather radars across the nation.
"This is like the 29th one that they've done so they're getting pretty good at it so increasing all those networks reliability so we have coverage across the country," said Mayer.
While they work on replacing the pedestal and any other pieces with wear and tear , the national weather service will be using a separate satellite system and neighboring weather radars.
"Some storms that came through Boise this week, they got up to 30,000 feet tall, so we can see that from the Pocatello radar," Mayer said. "We just can't see the storm base and really get that analysis of the base of the storm."
The dome will be placed back up on it's tower by Friday evening but crews still have to rebuild the satellite from the inside and re-calibrate the system so the National Weather Service says it expects the radar to be back up and running in the next two weeks.
ncG1vNJzZmihlJa1sLrEsKpnm5%2BifK%2Bx1qxmpaeTlrlwusCtoKimkaF6uLHArZ%2Beql2osrPCyJycZq2gnL%2BisMSsZJunmaiytHnWnpitoJWnerOtw5qp