Progress so far
Latest news on the construction of the weather radar on Abbey Road at Old Buckenham. Before Christmas the Met Office's main contractor finished the construction of the tower and the installation of the communication cabin. The activities associated with providing a net ecological benefit are now being carried out and this includes planting along the fence lines, bird-boxes and improvements to the existing pond on the Anglian Water site.
The project team are currently planning for the tower-top installation of the
radar parts and the associated radome. This will take around three weeks and is expected to start to happen
from mid-February. There will be a period of increased activity at the site
during this time, including deliveries and crane operations.
After the tower-top installation, the project will move into a testing and commissioning phase which will probably take several months. This is mainly
to check that the radar is functioning well and is able to deliver the higher
quality rainfall data to feed into Met Office and Environment Agency products
and services. The radar will be controlled and monitored remotely during this
phase of the project. They will also use this time to check noise
levels to make sure that they are within the constraint stipulated in the
planning permission.
The project will end in the summer once the testing and commissioning
has been completed and the data obtained will be used to better predict the rainfall and other weather conditions throughout East Anglia.
