Weather forecasting system and methods

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9310518-B2
Application number	US-201414163048-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 24, 2014
Priority date	Jan 24, 2014
Publication date	Apr 12, 2016
Grant date	Apr 12, 2016

Abstract

An approach for forecasting local weather patterns. The approach includes a method that includes receiving, by at least one computing device, images that include weather related information. The method includes analyzing, by the at least one computing device, the images to determine particular types of weather phenomena. The method includes analyzing, by the at least one computing device, the images to determine a motion of the particular types of weather phenomena. The method includes determining, by the at least one computing device, a weather forecast based on the analyzed images and the motion of the particular types of weather phenomena.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method of using multiple sensors at different locations to predict weather comprising:
providing sensors at locations different from one another, each sensor being configured to provide images including current weather related information at the location where the sensor is located;
receiving, by at least one computing device, the images from the sensors that include weather related information;
identifying, by the at least one computing device, the location of each of the sensors based upon information provided by the sensors;
analyzing, by the at least one computing device, the images to determine particular types of weather phenomena;
analyzing, by the at least one computing device, the images to determine a motion of the particular types of weather phenomena;
determining, by the at least one computing device, a weather forecast based on the analyzed images and the motion of the particular types of weather phenomena, and
extrapolating the weather forecast to cover areas for which no weather related information was provided by any of the sensors by using the motion of the particular types of weather phenomena,
wherein said motion of the particular types of weather phenomena is determined based on evolving weather features and their motion across the areas for which no weather related information was provided by any of the sensors by using at least one of speed, direction and correlation to known weather patterns to determine a probability of occurrence of the particular types of weather phenomena at a certain location within the areas for which no weather-related information was provided by any of the sensors.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprises determining a probability that the weather forecast will occur.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the sensors include at least one of traffic cameras, security cameras, mobile cameras, and mobile devices.

4. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyzing the images to determine the particular types of weather phenomena includes analyzing the images for different types of precipitation, wherein the precipitation includes at least one of rain, hail, sleet, and snow.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyzing the images to determine the particular types of weather phenomena includes analyzing the images for levels of grey that are used to determine sky conditions.

6. The method of claim 1 , further comprises:
receiving sensor information that includes information relating at least one of temperature, pressure, magnetic levels, and humidity; and
analyzing the sensor information to determine weather information and using the weather information to determine the weather forecast.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the motion is associated with a constant weather phenomena, which does not change from one location to another location.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein the motion is associated with an evolving weather phenomena, which changes from one location to another location.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the images are associated with a particular image quality level.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the images include at least one of structured data, unstructured data, and a combination of the structured data and the unstructured data.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
determining a level of accuracy of the weather forecast by comparing the weather forecast with actual weather phenomena; and
updating the at least one computing device's weather forecasting capabilities based on the level of accuracy.

12. The method of claim 1 , wherein the analyzing the images to determine the motion includes accessing weather maps, wherein the weather maps include information indicating at least one of pressure levels and temperature levels.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising searching for additional sensors to receive images including weather related information from after the location of each of the sensors has been identified and before analyzing the images to determine particular types of weather phenomena.

14. A computer program product for determining a weather forecast based upon images received from a plurality of sensing devices located at different geographic locations from one another, the computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer usable storage medium having program code embodied in the storage medium, the program code readable/executable by a computing device to:
receive the images from the sensing devices that are located in different geographic locations, wherein the images can include information relating to at least one of rain, hail, sleet, snow, clouds, and lightening;
identify the location of each of the sensing devices based upon information provided by the sensing devices;
analyze the images for weather related phenomena;
analyze the images for movement of the weather related phenomena associated with at least one of constant weather phenomena and evolving weather phenomena.;
determine the weather forecast based on the analyzed images, which includes a probability that the weather forecast occurs, and
extrapolate the weather forecast to cover areas for which no images have been provided by any of the sensing devices by using the movement of the particular types of weather phenomena,
wherein said movement of the particular types of weather phenomena is determined based on evolving weather features and their movement across the areas for which no weather related information was provided by any of the sensors by using at least one of speed, direction and correlation to known weather patterns to determine a probability of occurrence of the particular types of weather phenomena at a certain location within the areas for which no weather-related information was provided by any of the sensors.

15. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the images are received from the sensing devices that are registered with the computing device before the sensing devices send the images.

16. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the receiving the images includes receiving location and time stamp information for the images.

17. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein images can be at least one of video and photos.

18. The computer program product of claim 14 , wherein the program code is readable/executable by the computing device to search for additional sensing devices to receive images from after the location of each of the sensing devices has been identified and before analyzing the images to determine weather related phenomena.

19. A system comprising:
a plurality of cameras located in different geographic areas from one another, each of the cameras being configured to provide images including current weather related information at the location where the camera is located;
a plurality of sensors, each of the sensors being located in a same geographic area as a corresponding one of the cameras, and each of the sensors being configured to determine at least one of temperature, pressure, magnetic, levels and humidity at the location where the sensor is located;
a CPU, computer readable memory and a computer readable storage medium;
program instructions to receive images from the cameras located in the different geographic areas;
program instructions to receive time and location information associated with the images to determine the location of each of the cameras;
program instructions to receive sensor information from the sensors related to at least one of te

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Haas Richard M
• Johnson Randy S
• Northway Tedrick N
• Rinckel William H

Classifications

• G06T7/20

  Analysis of motion (motion estimation for coding, decoding, compressing or decompressing digital video signals H04N19/43, H04N19/51) · CPC title

• G06T7/0022

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T2207/30192

  Weather; Meteorology · CPC title

• G01W1/10 Primary

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

• G06T2207/10016

  Video; Image sequence · CPC title