Doppler radar in Boise will undergo week-long maintenance. Here's how it impacts your forecast this week.

Spring can bring volatile weather in Idaho — but the national weather service is doing maintenance to make forecasting a bit harder.

There are more than 160 doppler radars across the country and two of them are located in Idaho: one in Pocatello and the other in Boise. The current radar outage is cutting off data for most of southwest Idaho for the next six days.

There are so many ways meteorologists can forecast the weather. But doppler radar is key.

Maintenance has started and for the next six days, the doppler radar will be down for repairs and upgrades to maintain its longevity and continue to provide the most current and detailed information on surrounding storms through 2030. Similar work was just done in Pocatello on their radar.

Related: Doppler radar in Pocatello under week-long maintenance starting Thursday. Here's how it impacts your forecast.

With wet, unsettled weather coming toward the Treasure Valley as early as Thursday night, Idaho News 6 asked the National Weather Service why maintenance had to be this month, a month known to have a higher chance of thunderstorms

“We chose not to take it down in the winter or the summer obviously winter weather has a big impact in our area and in the summer we really want the radar running for fire weather forecasting so when we have a lot of firefighters out there on the ground we want the doppler radar running then, " said Ravis Mayer, electronics systems analyst at National Weather Service Boise. "It’s never a great time to take the doppler radar down but we had to balance it between other radars in the country."