John,
What (if any) are the next big technological advancements in weather forecasting? Will the advancements be incremental, or is there a piece of technology that will revolutionize forecasting?

I predict there will be a 50/50 chance that there will be a technolical advancement in weather forecasting.There,now I'm covered!

To the best of my knowledge there is nothing on the immediate horizon that would lend itself to a huge change in technological advancements in forecasting. Historically most of the advancements have been incremental and I would suspect that trend will continue.

-John

Although it is by NO means a revolutionary type of thing, the NWS will soon (like 1-2 years) be implementing dual-polar (vertical and well as horizontal beams) capability to the Doppler radar. This'll provide a more complete picture of the precip/wind patterns. In the 10-15 year range the next step will be a phased-array system which will use electronics to aim the beam, rather than have a big dish rotating and changing elevation.

Perhaps someday they will be able to predict/explain how the "Big One" snowfalls can proportionally diminish in direct correlation to the quantity of HYPE our local SE WI. forecasters spew.