Surveillance Radar with Weather Channel
Figure 1: Weather channel display of the ATC-Radar ASR-E
Surveillance Radar with Weather Channel
Clearly, implementation of a dedicated ground based weather radar system is a costly undertaking. One possible solution which could provide a cost-effective way is to operate a PSR (Primary Surveillance Radar) and weather radar service using the same antenna and turning gear.
There are commercially available PSR solutions that have a 'weather channel' option. (E.g. the ASR-E of the EADS- company.) Normally however, the main service supported by the radar must be the ATC surveillance picture showing targets. It would therefore be the case that the antenna rotation rate and scan elevation must be governed by the surveillance requirement (and be faster than other weather radar systems).
Due to the above and other technical constraints, weather channels on PSR are not normally considered to be capable of providing highly useful weather pictures (and they may be operationally inadequate for the requirement).