1 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 The Severe Weather Data Inventory (SWDI): A Geospatial Database and Climatology of Severe Weather Data Steve Ansari, Stephen Del Greco (NOAA / NCDC) Mark Phillips (UNC-Asheville / NEMAC)

2 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Goals Easy access to data in NCDC Archive Inventory for Severe Weather Data Derive climatology products Geospatial Database solution Modular! Scalable! Unique spatial dataset relationship Services! SOA!

3 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data Current Datasets: NEXRAD Level-III Storm Attributes Preliminary Local Storm Reports Coming soon: Storm Events Database NWS Warnings (presentation 9B.5) National Lightning Detection Network Framework for other datasets

4 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NEXRAD Level-III TVS Product (w/ Reflectivity)

5 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NEXRAD Level-III Hail Product

6 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NEXRAD Level-III Mesocyclone Product

7 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NEXRAD Level-III Tornado Product

8 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data Preliminary Local Storm Reports Preliminary reports from Storm Spotters, Emergency Mgmt., etc… Tornado, Hail, Flash Flood, Wind, etc… Transmitted in real-time – nightly load into SWDI

9 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data Preliminary Local Storm Reports

10 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NCDC Storm Events Database Verified text reports from NWS and Storm Prediction Center. Data from 1950 – Present Tornado, Hail, Lightning, Wind, etc… Fatalities, Injuries, Crop/Property Damage Loaded into SWDI ~3 months after end of each month

11 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NCDC Storm Events Database

12 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NWS Warnings (polygon and county-based) Severe Thunderstorm Tornado Flash Flood Marine More info: Presentation 9B.5

13 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data NWS Warnings in Google Earth

14 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Data Vaisala’s National Lightning Detection Network (NLDN) 130 Sensors Nationwide 1995 – Present Images courtesy of NASA (

15 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Process

16 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Geospatial Database Oracle Spatial Extension Adds GIS functionality to Oracle database Links all spatial datasets together “Select all TVS within 50 miles of ATL between :00Z and :00Z” “Select all Hail > 1 inch within Fulton County” +

17 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access Web Pages ( )

18 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access Data Download (Shapefile, KMZ, Text File) NLDN exported as Shapefile in ArcGIS

19 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access Data Download (Shapefile, KMZ, Text File) NEXRAD Tornado Vortex Signatures in Google Earth

20 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access Web Map Server / Web Feature Server (WMS/WFS) Direct access from GIS Clients

21 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access REST Web Services Each URL defines a unique resource Easy programmatic access to data Allows integration into custom applications System and language independent

22 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Access Example SWDI REST URLs: (Almost a Virtual File System – hopefully intuitive!) 1. /kmz/plsr/ : /csv/nx3tvs/ : ?stat=count 3. /xml/nx3tvs/ : ?radius=5.0&center=-96.0, /shp/nx3hail/ : ?state=ca

23 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis Comparison between datasets –Possible Bias Detection, QC, etc… “Select all TVS between :00Z and :00Z where there are no NLDN within 10 miles” “Select all Thunderstorm Warnings that do not contain a Local Storm Report”

24 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis

25 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis

26 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis

27 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis

28 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Storm Risk Assessment Project Spatial distribution and frequency

29 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Storm Risk Assessment Project AL Tornado outbreak of 03/01/2007. –Who was affected? (using L3 TVS data) 4.2 to 1 Homeowners to Renters in affected Census blocks. (Alabama statewide ratio = 2.6)

30 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Conclusion The Severe Weather Data Inventory: Allows easier access to the NCDC Archive Joint project with NEMAC, UNCA, RENCI Modular GIS spatial database approach Datasets remain independent Multiple user access methods Improve disaster response, recovery and mitigation Many possibilities of application Not real-time at NCDC – updated nightly

31 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Future Plans Integrate additional datasets (Warnings, Storm Data, NLDN) Reprocess historical data Storm Risk Assessment Project: Product generation, socio-economic analysis, … Include data mined from gridded datasets (Precipitation amount/type, hail regions, etc…)

32 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Contact Thank you! Questions? SWDI Website: (password protected for BETA testing) Contact: (828) Patton Ave. Asheville, NC 28801

33 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006

34 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Analysis Disaster Mitigation Example: Compare 1 Hour of NLDN to Population Grid Data: NLDN 08/02/ :00 – 21:00 UTC Gridded Population of the World - SEDAC (Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center at Columbia University)

35 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 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

36 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Example Analysis Process: Download 2000 Population Grid (~12 km resolution).

37 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Example Analysis Process: Convert cell centroids to points, subset for Florida.

38 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Example Analysis Process: Spatially join to NLDN data based on distance.

39 86 th Annual American Meteorological Society Meeting Atlanta, Georgia January 29 – February 2, 2006 Example Analysis Total Population Affected = 696, Strikes or More = 166,346