The Associated Press and the PDN

COPALIS CROSSING, Grays Harbor County — The director of the National Weather Service, Sen. Maria Cantwell and Congressman Norm Dicks are among the officials who gathered today on the Olympic Peninsula’s Pacific coast to celebrate the operation of a new Doppler radar station.

They said it will help save lives and property by improving storm forecasts that come in from the southwest. Until now, radar images from a Doppler station on Camano Island were blocked by the Olympic Mountains.

Weather Service Director Jack Hayes thanked Cantwell for pushing for the funding that made the radar station possible.

The meteorologist in charge of the Seattle Weather Service office, Brad Colman, says forecasters already are using information from the radar station on Langley Hill near Copalis Crossing to close the information gap and make forecasting for the West End a lot easier and more reliable.

The new radar station has dual-polarization technology to show the intensity of storms that may cause wind damage and flooding.

To view radar images from the new station: http://tinyurl.com/pdndoppler1 .