At the end of August, Marc Schleiss, Christine Unal and Linda Bogerd represented the PHARA team at ERAD 2026, the 13th European Conference on Radar in Meteorology and Hydrology, held in Belgrade, Serbia. Every two years, this conference brings together researchers, meteorological institutes, and radar manufacturers working on radar technology and its applications in meteorology and hydrology. 

Linda presented a poster on the PHARA project, giving us the opportunity to introduce PHARA to the ERAD community and show pictures of our recently delivered tiles. We also presented the idea of obtaining realistic vertical profiles of radar reflectivity spectra. These provide insights into the development of cloud and precipitation particles throughout the atmosphere and can serve as input for our PHARA simulator. The simulator will demonstrate what PHARA is expected to observe in the atmosphere, and with what accuracy, using realistic atmospheric scenarios based on these profiles.

In between presentations, the team attended talks and exchanged ideas with researchers working on related technologies, including phased-array radar teams from other continents. It was a valuable few days for connecting with the radar meteorology community, and we look forward to sharing more on PHARA as the project progresses.