Today, Columbia County announced that its partner, Climavision, a climate tech data pioneer, has completed installing a new weather radar system in Columbia County, helping to fill a dangerous low-level radar coverage gap in the region. This is the latest deployment in Climavision’s high-resolution network, which is being installed around the United States.

The east central Georgia region has a low-level ‘blind spot’ in weather radar coverage between neighboring NEXRAD S-Band radars. While the U.S. has the gold-standard of radar networks, there are still some low-level gaps in the region that the network doesn’t cover completely due to the topography and the nature of weather radar technology. This leaves some areas exposed to weather phenomena that often happens in the lower atmosphere such as flash flooding, sleet, ice, and tornadoes. Filling in this blind spot is critical in order for forecasters and weather sensitive businesses to have better visibility into volatile weather events and to ensure they understand the ground truth.

The dual-polarization, X-Band weather radar is designed specifically to fill these small gaps to provide the highest resolution view of what’s happening on the ground. While all warnings and notices will continue to come through official government channels, the system will provide critical visibility to help better plan, prepare, and respond to volatile weather situations.

“This immediately becomes the most detailed radar system in the state of Georgia,” said Climavision Co-Founder and CEO Chris Goode. “It offers far more weather data than a typical radar system, delivering a dramatically clearer picture of the area for weather forecasters, enabling them to provide the public with a much more accurate forecast, particularly when severe weather is coming. In an area so heavily impacted by volatile weather, this system will be an invaluable tool and will no doubt save many lives.”

Shawn Granato, Columbia County Emergency Management Director, states “I am a huge fan of public-private partnerships. There are certain things for which the government, especially the local government, has neither the acumen nor the basic resources to produce desired results regarding specific issues, shortcomings or problems. Developing, maintaining and operating a weather radar system is surely one of them. Therefore, it is extremely beneficial to be able to partner with a private company like Climavision to be able to have access to data that will help us make well-educated decisions and better protect our residents and visitors.”