Apparatus and method for providing environmental predictive indicators to emergency response managers

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9285504-B2
Application number	US-201313947508-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jul 22, 2013
Priority date	Nov 13, 2008
Publication date	Mar 15, 2016
Grant date	Mar 15, 2016

Abstract

A method of predicting weather-exacerbated threats, said method comprising inputting localized weather measurement data into a weather threat prediction system; predicting future localized weather conditions based on said localized weather measurement data combined with modeling from large scale weather data including National Weather Service Data; inputting natural environment and infrastructure data into said weather threat prediction system; correlating said infrastructure data with said predicted future localized weather conditions; and determining a threat level index over a region, a threat level indicating an area having a certain probabilistic likelihood of being harmed by said future weather conditions.

First claim

We claim:

1. A method for forecasting weather-related events comprising the steps of:
combining at a computer system initial large scale model domain boundary conditions based on large scale national weather data combined with local mesonet data from local mesonet weather sensors and forming a Numerical Forecasting Model parameterized and conditioned based on mesoscale data and local environmental condition data;
generating weather prediction data based on the parameterized and conditioned Numerical Forecasting Model; and
displaying the weather prediction data at a user interface, where said weather sensors of the local mesonet include one or more of a stationery weather sensor station, a mobile weather sensor station, a RADAR station, and an un-manned aerial system borne weather sensor station and said weather sensors are geographically placed based on infrastructure data and regional environmental characteristic data.

2. The method as recited in claim 1 , where displaying the weather prediction data includes transmitting and displaying graphics data wirelessly and remotely with respect to the computer system to a personal computing device illustrative of the weather prediction data and formatted for displaying on a personal computing device user interface.

3. A system for forecasting weather-related events comprising:
a network meteorological weather sensors including one or more of a stationery weather sensor station, a mobile weather sensor station, a RADAR station, and an un-manned aerial system borne weather sensor station and said weather sensors are geographically located based on infrastructure data and regional environmental characteristic data and communicably linked over a wide area network to a central server;
a computer system having a memory and one or more processors;
one or more processor executable programs stored in the memory and executed by the one or more processors, where the one or more processor executable programs include:
instructions for combining initial large scale model domain boundary conditions based on large scale national weather data combined with local mesonet data from the local mesonet weather sensors and forming a Numerical Forecasting Model parameterized and conditioned based on mesoscale data and local environmental conditions;
instructions for generating weather prediction data based on the parameterized and conditioned Numerical Forecasting Model; and
instructions for displaying the weather prediction data at a user interface.

4. The system as recited in claim 3 , where instructions for displaying the weather prediction data includes instructions for transmitting and displaying graphics data wirelessly and remotely with respect to the computer system to a personal computing device illustrative of the weather prediction data and formatted for displaying on a personal computing device user interface.

5. A system for predicting weather-related threats, comprising:
a local mesonet network of meteorological weather monitoring stations having a plurality of monitoring stations communicably linked over a wide area network to a central server where each of said plurality of meteorological weather monitoring stations operable to transmit sensor data to said central server and where each of said plurality of meteorological weather monitoring stations are geographically place based on infrastructure data and regional environmental characteristic data; and
a computing system communicably linked to said central server over said wide area network and having an initialization module adapted for initializing a plurality of boundary conditions for an EAS model domain, where said initialization module has a pre-processing sub-module operable to extract data from a geographic database to define the model domain lower boundary condition, a function operable to extract data imported from a large scale national database to define lateral boundary conditions, and a Metgrid function operable to transform data for the EAS model domain; said computing system further comprising an ingestion module adapted for ingesting initial EAS model domain boundary conditions and combining with Local Mesonet data to get numerical forecasting model by importing Local Mesonet Data from the Local Mesonet and transformed by a sampling function into uniform data grid and storing the data grid; said computing system further comprising a parameterization scheme module adapted for selecting and tuning a parameterization scheme of the numerical model based at least partially on Local Mesonet Data; and said computing system further comprising a Prediction module adapted for generating weather prediction data based on the numerical model and outputting the weather prediction data to a user interface adapted for operator viewing.

6. The system as recited in claim 5 , where the network of meteorological weather monitoring stations include a stationery weather monitoring station mounted on existing infrastructure.

7. The system as recited in claim 5 , where the network of meteorological weather monitoring stations include a ground based mobile weather monitoring station mounted on a mobile vehicle.

8. The system as recited in claim 5 , where the network of meteorological weather monitoring stations include a Doppler RADAR weather monitoring station mounted on existing infrastructure.

9. The system as recited in claim 5 , where outputting the weather prediction data to the user interface includes outputting the weather prediction data wirelessly to a mobile device formatted for graphically displaying on the user interface of the mobile device.

10. A method for predicting weather-related threats, comprising the steps of:
providing a mesoscale network of meteorological weather monitoring stations by placing plurality of weather monitoring stations geographically based on infrastructure data and environmental data thereby forming a local Mesonet and communicably linking said plurality of meteorological weather monitoring stations over a wide area network to a central server;
transmitting sensor data from each of said plurality of meteorological weather monitoring stations to said central server;
initializing a plurality of boundary conditions for a EAS model domain using a computing system having an initialization module adapted for initializing the plurality of boundary conditions for the EAS model domain;
pre-processing medium scale forecast data with a pre-processing sub-module of said initialization module;
extracting data from a geographic database to define the model domain lower boundary condition;
extracting data imported from a national weather service to define lateral boundary conditions;
transforming the extracted data from the geographic database and the national weather service for the EAS model domain;
ingesting initial EAS model domain boundary conditions and combining with the Local Mesonet to a large scale Numerical Forecasting model using the ingestion module of the computing system and importing Local Mesonet Data from the Local Mesonet and transformed by a sampling function into uniform data grid and storing;
selecting and tuning a parameterization scheme based at least partially on Local Mesonet Data using a parameterization scheme module of the computing system; and
generating weather prediction data based on the large scale Numerical Forecasting model and outputting the weather prediction data to a user interface adapted for operator viewing.

11. The method as recited in claim 10 , where the plurality of meteorological weather monitoring stations include a stationery weather monitoring station mounted to existing infrastructure.

12. The method as recited

Assignees

• Univ Saint Louis

Inventors

• Dannevik William
• Pasken Robert W

Classifications

• G01W1/10 Primary

  Devices for predicting weather conditions (computers per se G06; display devices G09) · CPC title

• G01W1/00

  Meteorology · CPC title

• G08B21/10

  responsive to calamitous events, e.g. tornados or earthquakes · CPC title