86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20061

The Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI):

Spatial Query Tools, Web Services and Data Portals at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center

Steve Ansari, Stephen Del Greco, Brian Nelson, Helen FrederickNOAA / NCDC

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20062

Goals

• Inventory for Severe Weather Data

• Geospatial Database solution

• Modular!

• Unique spatial dataset relationship

• Multiple user access methods

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20063

Data

NEXRAD Level-III

• Hail, Mesocyclone, and Tornado

• Data from 1991 – Present

• Estimates for hail size, wind shear, heights, etc…

• All searchable!

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20064

Data

NEXRAD Level-III Hail Product

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20065

Data

NEXRAD Level-III Mesocyclone Product

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20066

Data

NEXRAD Level-III Tornado Product

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20067

Data

NEXRAD Level-II

• Generate products with WDSS-II

• Hail, Mesocyclone, and Tornado

• Different Algorithms (NSSL vs. NWS)

• Reprocess Data from 1991 – Present

• 1000 terabytes!

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20068

Data

NEXRAD Level-II – WDSS-II Display

Image courtesy of Travis Smith, NSSL/CIMMS

http://www.wdssii.org

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 20069

Data

NCDC Storm Events Database

• Text reports from NWS and Storm Prediction Center.

• Data from 1950 – Present

• Tornado, Hail, Lightning, Wind, etc…

• Fatalities, Injuries, Crop/Property Damage

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200610

Data

NCDC Storm Events Database

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200611

Data

Vaisala’s National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN)

• 130 Sensors Nationwide

• 1995 – Present

Images courtesy of NASA (http://thunder.msfc.nasa.gov/primer/primer3.html)

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200612

Process

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200613

Geospatial Database

• Oracle Spatial Extension

• Adds GIS functionality to Oracle database

• Links all spatial datasets together

“Select all NLDN within 50 miles of ATL between 20050819 18:00Z and 20050819 22:00Z”

“Select all Hail > 1” within Fulton County”

+

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200614

Access

Web Pages

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200615

Access

Data Download

• Shapefile, NetCDF, Text File

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200616

Access

Web Map Server / Web Feature Server (WMS/WFS)

• Direct access from GIS Clients

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200617

Access

SOAP Web Services

• Programmatic access to data

• Allows integration into custom applications

• System and language independent

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200618

Analysis

• Comparison between datasets

“Select all TVS between 20050810 0:00Z and 20050811 0:00Z where there are no NLDN within 10 miles”

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200619

Analysis

• Event Study

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200620

Analysis

• Disaster Mitigation

• Example:Compare 1 Hour of NLDN to Population Grid

Data: NLDN 08/02/2005 20:00 – 21:00 UTCGridded Population of the World - SEDAC (Socioeconomic Data and Applications

Center at Columbia University)http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/gpw

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200621

Analysis

• Example:

Compare 1 Hour of NLDN to Population Grid

Process:

1. Download 2000 Population Grid at

~4 km resolution.

2. Convert cell centroids to points

3. Subset data for Florida

4. Spatial Join to closest NLDN data

5. Examine matching population grid cells

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200622

Example Analysis

• Process: Download 2000 Population Grid (~12 km resolution).

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200623

Example Analysis

• Process: Convert cell centroids to points, subset for Florida.

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200624

Example Analysis

• Process: Spatially join to NLDN data based on distance.

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200625

Example Analysis

Total Population Affected = 696,179 --- 5 Strikes or More = 166,346

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200626

Conclusion

The Severe Weather Data Inventory:• Modular GIS spatial database approach• Datasets remain independent• Multiple user access methods• Improve disaster response, recovery and

mitigation.• Many possibilities of application.• Free!

86th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting

Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 200627

Future Plans2006

2007

Finish decoder software.Start populating database with current data.

(NEXRAD, Storm Data and NLDN)

Web page access / Data Export

Reprocess historical data

Advanced user access (WMS/WFS/SOAP)

Contact:

Steve.Ansari@noaa.gov

(828) 271-4611

151 Patton Ave.

Asheville, NC 28801