[1] The phased-array radar takes a scan of the sky in anywhere from 10 to 30 seconds, viewing 100 vertical levels in a range of 60 km.
It divides the sky into several "layers" and uses a new algorithm for forecasting very quickly.
[1] Current research is being led by the RIKEN Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS)[3] with the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), Tokyo Metropolitan University, and Osaka University.
Since 2003, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has been experimenting with phased-array weather radar as a replacement for conventional parabolic antenna to provide more time resolution in atmospheric sounding.
This could be significant with severe thunderstorms, as their evolution can be better evaluated with more timely data.