Mobile, Alabama – A rather bizarre radar communication outage is affecting several key weather radars along the Gulf Coast, leaving the public, the media, and popular weather apps without access to important data during an active stretch of weather. The radars themselves are working normally and can still be viewed by local National Weather Service offices, but the data is not reaching the rest of the world. As of Sunday night, there was no estimated time for when the data would be restored.
Which Radars Are Affected?
The outage involves five Doppler radars that cover a large part of southern Alabama, the Florida Panhandle, and southern Georgia. These include KMOB in Mobile, Alabama, KEOX near Fort Novosel, formerly Fort Rucker, in southeast Alabama, KEVX at Eglin Air Force Base in the Florida Panhandle, KTLH in Tallahassee, Florida, and KVAX at Moody Air Force Base in south Georgia.
Together, these radars monitor weather across a wide stretch of the Gulf Coast, including Mobile, Pensacola, Destin, Panama City, Dothan, Tallahassee, and Valdosta, along with the coastal waters of the Gulf.
Radars Working, But Data Not Reaching the Public
The unusual part of this situation is that the radars are not broken. They are scanning the sky and collecting data as normal, and local National Weather Service offices can still see the information. That means forecasters in places like Mobile and Tallahassee can still issue warnings based on what the radars detect.
The problem is that the data is not being sent out to the wider network that delivers radar images to the public. As a result, high-resolution, single-site radar data from these locations is not available on many weather apps, websites, and TV stations.
What Caused the Outage?
The issue began with a fiber optic cable cut, which disrupted the connection used to send radar data out to the broader network. After that, a network card had to be replaced as crews worked to restore service. However, even after those repairs, the problem continued into Sunday night, and there is still no timeline for when full access to the data will return.
Tornado Warning Without Public Radar Data
The outage became especially concerning on Sunday when the National Weather Service in Mobile issued a tornado warning for Fort Morgan in coastal Baldwin County, Alabama. Forecasters at the Mobile office were able to see the radar data and issue the warning, but TV meteorologists and weather apps had no local radar data to show the public…