Narrative:

Weather was moving through the entire southern california area. When we were on the bur sensor; there was no weather displayed on our scopes. Some of the storm system contained severe weather including areas of extreme precipitation. We were getting requests for deviations from numerous aircraft. I worked a flight into bur and got a call from the tower that there was moderate to heavy rain on the final approach course. I saw nothing on my display. I double checked my weather settings; and set them to 100 for brightness; still nothing. I advised the osic who called down to technical operations; and suddenly the weather came on. There were cells now depicted of level 4 intensity and level 2 and 3 returns in over half of my sector. The osic said technical operations had the 'weather' turned off; and therefore none of the weather information was reaching our scopes. It wasn't until they turned it on that we could see the severe weather in our area. This is the second time this has happened; and it sure seems like giving technical operations the option of turning off our weather information without telling us is not very smart or safe. Recommendation; if technical operations shuts off our weather sensing capability; (precipitation sensing); we need to be told; and there should be some indicator on the scope; like the weather box flashing red if the function is off or suppressed.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: SCT Controller described event during storm conditions when weather information was turned off by Maintenance and no notifications were provided to controllers. Reporter suggests that a procedural or equipment notification device informing controllers of the weather information equipment status would be appropriate.

Narrative: Weather was moving through the entire Southern California area. When we were on the BUR sensor; there was no weather displayed on our scopes. Some of the storm system contained severe weather including areas of extreme precipitation. We were getting requests for deviations from numerous aircraft. I worked a flight into BUR and got a call from the Tower that there was moderate to heavy rain on the final approach course. I saw nothing on my display. I double checked my weather settings; and set them to 100 for brightness; still nothing. I advised the OSIC who called down to Technical Operations; and suddenly the weather came on. There were cells now depicted of Level 4 intensity and Level 2 and 3 returns in over half of my sector. The OSIC said Technical Operations had the 'weather' turned off; and therefore none of the weather information was reaching our scopes. It wasn't until they turned it on that we could see the severe weather in our area. This is the second time this has happened; and it sure seems like giving Technical Operations the option of turning off our weather information without telling us is not very smart or safe. Recommendation; if Technical Operations shuts off our weather sensing capability; (precipitation sensing); we need to be told; and there should be some indicator on the scope; like the weather box flashing red if the function is off or suppressed.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.