By John Bosse
After more than three years in development and network deployment, we are excited to share our newest storm warning technology, called Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts (DTAs). DTAs are issued by Earth Networks and provide advanced notification of the increased threat of severe weather moving into an identified area. DTAs supplement the alerts issued by the National Weather Service for severe thunderstorms and tornadoes. DTAs are based on our Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN).
What is the ENTLN? It’s the world’s largest total lightning network with more than 500 sensors that detect both cloud-to-ground lightning as well in -cloud and intra-cloud pulses.
Since high rates of in-cloud lightning often indicate the potential for severe weather phenomena, our network can provide advanced warnings for heavy rain, large hail, dangerous cloud-to-ground lightning strikes and even tornadoes like the ones that ripped through wide swaths of the Midwest and Southern U.S. earlier this year.
Image shows Earth Networks Dangerous Thunderstorm Alerts (DTAs) issued during the February 28-29, 2012 severe weather event that killed 13 people from the Plains into the Tennessee Valley.
• Purple Polygons: DTAs
• Orange and Red Polygons: NWS severe thunderstorm warnings and tornado warnings
• Triangles: Local storm reports of hail, high winds, structure damage and tornadoes
We recently shared an analysis of 17 tornadic events in Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee, Kentucky, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois from February 28-March 2, 2012 in a webinar directed at emergency management personnel, government officials, first responders, and utilities.
The analysis showed that using Earth Networks’ DTAs can increase the median lead times by 15 minutes — that’s double the lead time typically available today. Additionally, the combined spatial and temporal resolution of the system offers many benefits that are complementary to traditional radar, satellite and surface observations. That translates into additional time to mobilize crews, secure assets, and seek shelter when minutes matter.
For professionals who missed the webinar, we have an excerpt available online. Use this link to access the webinar: New Storm Alerts for Emergency Managers.
Are you an emergency responder? What challenges do you face during extreme weather events? I’m interested in hearing your story. Email me at jbosse@earthnetworks.com.
By Greg Douglas, Director of Business Development, Earth Networks
Earth Networks is a member of Oxfam America’s new Partnership for Resilience and Environmental Preparedness (PREP) alliance – a group of companies with a deep interest in supporting responsible business practices that help both bu
sinesses and communities prepare and adapt to climate change.
As part of our involvement with PREP, I recently spoke with other members as part of a panel discussion at a business briefing in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. The event provided a fascinating and important look into how extreme weather impacts the global supply chains of leading consumer brands, including Levi Strauss & Co. and Limited Brands.
My contribution to the discussion centered on the mounting evidence indicating the frequency and intensity of severe weather events, both in the U.S. and internationally. Consider that $200B is lost annually due to severe weather. For instance, in agriculture, climate change has been linked to changes in crop yields with temperature playing a bigger role than precipitation. For businesses relying on key staples such as cotton, it is easy to understand how lost yields can take their toll on even the most robust supply chain.
Thinking broadly, many business sectors that play key roles in the supply chain can be devastated by extreme weather, including energy and utilities, transportation, and aviation – just to name a few.
Extreme weather also comes with a big price tag. In spite of investing as a nation more than $5B in the some of the best weather technology available over the last 30 years, we suffered 14, $1B weather disasters in the U.S. last year. Now just imagine the devastation and toll that would likely have occurred without advancements in weather technology and innovations in severe weather warning.
Now consider the fate of most other countries that have not invested $5B. Access to severe weather warnings is often limited or completely unavailable. While many in the U.S. do not think twice about having the weather forecast and weather alerting at their fingertips through mobile phones, TV and online, it’s a luxury that is currently out of reach for approximately 6.5 billion people in the world.
Fortunately, new technologies hold the promise of changing this. Here at Earth Networks, our weather and lightning networks enable us to offer a radar-like solution at a fraction of the cost. In addition, our lightning network also enables us to warn in advance of severe weather and deliver alerts directly via mobile apps and online. We strongly believe our technology will level the playing field by providing alerts to potentially billions worldwide when minutes can and often do make the difference between life and death.
Mike Lombardi, Vice President of Advertising Sales and Marketing for Earth Networks’ WeatherBug brand, provided insight for marketers during a panel session at the inaugural Mid-Atlantic Marketing Summit in Tyson’s Corner, Virginia, on April 20.
During the “Mobile Marketing: Beyond the Hype” in the Gannett Auditorium, Mike shared the stage with Nicole Stemberger, Senior Strategist, AKQA; Craig Etheridge, VP, Mobile Advertising Sales, USA TODAY and Gannett Digital; and Kurt Roberts, Director, Creative Technology, RP3 Agency Speakers. Daniel Odio, CEO of Socialize, moderated.
According to Lombardi, advertisers must strive to provide a personalized experience with rich, engaging content and brand experience. He also stressed that advertisers must continue to embrace new digital platforms, whether it is the next high-resolution tablet computer or the latest 4G smartphone.
Earth Networks’ Vice President of Federal Programs Bill Callahan discussed severe weather on The Kojo Nnamdi show at the WAMU studios in Washington, D.C. today.
Along with Meteorologist Veronica Johnson of NBC4 and Chris Strager, Advisor for Science and Service Integration at the National Weather Service, Bill answered c
allers’ questions on the science of weather forecasting and severe weather alerting.Are you weather ready?
Listen to the archived version of the show hosted by Matt McCleskey: “Hurricanes, Tornadoes & Severe Storms: Are you ready?“
- by Earth Networks’ Energy Products and Business Development Director Dave Oberholzer
Earth Networks recently won a gr
ant from the Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) program to further research using our real-time, neighborhood-level weather data to optimize energy use in homes. For this initiative, we will be working collaboratively with Dr. Jungho Kim, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Michael Siemann, Graduate Research Assistant, at the University of Maryland’s James A. Clark School of Engineering.
The grant continues our previous work with the University of Maryland. Over the past two years, Earth Networks has invested millions of dollars and partnered with UMD to develop and test prototype home energy management systems. The new M
IPS grant is an investment by the State of Maryland and Earth Networks to complete the development of our models and help bring this exciting new technology to market and adapt it to the commercial building market.
As a result of our ongoing work, we are introducing a home energy demand response and energy efficiency service called e5, which stands for ease, energy, efficiency, environment and earth. The service, which will launch this summer, is designed to reduce peak consumer demand for power and help utilities ramp up their smart grid initiatives by managing the impact of extreme heat or cold on the electric grid.
Electrical demand is directly correlated to local weather conditions. For example, during the summer, high temperatures, solar radiation, wind and humidity combine to burden electrical loads during the hottest part of the day. Peak loads take their toll economically and environmentally. Balancing these loads from peak to non-peak period can result in huge savings.
While demand response has been used for years to reduce industrial electrical loads when demand is high, managing residential demand is more challenging, and that 
is where traditional response programs have faltered. Consumers are not typically willing to sacrifice any significant amount of comfort in exchange for the dollar or two a week they may receive in return for participating in typical utility programs. Yet, because more than 50% of peak load is attributable to residential air conditioning, comfort is part of the equation that cannot be ignored.
e5 takes a different approach to deliver energy savings without sacrificing creature comforts. To help balance peak power demand, e5 uses advanced algorithms and real time neighborhood-level weather data to model and control a house – rather than relying on data from a distant airport or other location that may not represent actual current local conditions.
As an added benefit, these algorithms can be used to minimize heating and cooling costs, and give homeowners valuable insight on their energy use.
The program has three goals:
We believe that it’s possible to use home energy to heat and cool your home in a way that will help save consumers money while also helping the environment…thanks to local weather observations from the closest weather station in your community.
– by John Bosse, Director of Energy & Government Services, Earth Networks
Through our partnership with IBM, Earth Networks had been providing data from our global weather network for use in IBM’s Deep Thunder project. For the initiative, we have been providing local data from our own network of 8,000 professional weather stations, along with information from other sources, such as the National Weather Service (NWS) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
The weather modeling project is focused on improving short-term forecasts for areas as small as a square kilometer. Deep Thunder is providing utilities and large municipalities with the neighborhood-local information needed to prepare for events such as hurricanes and major snow storms, localized flooding and resulting damage or destruction of infrastructure.
In the future, other sectors, including aviation, transportation and emergency response may benefit from the advancements from Deep Thunder.
IBM’s initiative was covered recently in Talking Points Memo.
Want to know more? Read the case study about the North American utility that can better predict where its people and equipment will be needed before damaging storms arrive: Electric Utility gets ahead of the weather with new forecasting models
by Dr. Charlie Liu, Chief Architect, Earth Networks
Figure 1. PulseRad at 2011-08-12 07:54 UTC
Earth Networks recently introduced PulseRadSM technology, the first radar alternative based on Total Lightning detection. In case you did not see my presentation about PulseRad at the 2012 AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans in January, here is a bit of background on the potential benefits of the technology that was developed with two goals in mind:
Figure 2. 24 hour rainfall estimate from PulseRad on 2011-08-13 12:00 UTC
Developing the algorithms for the patent-pending PulseRad technology was an extensive process. To investigate the relationships between the lightning flash rate and the radar reflectivity, I studied the lightning data and radar data for U.S. from the full year of 2011.
In the database, there are hundreds of millions of flashes detected by the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network (ENTLN). Each flash data point records information, such as the latitude, longitude, height, peak current and the flash time, with the precision up to microsecond. The radar data are stored in binary gridded files, which include grid node and the maximum radar reflectivity (dBZ) values.
To carry out the research, the first step was to track the lightning cells from the lightning flash data. Once the cells are available, the lightning flash rates and the radar dBZ values are compared.
While the idea is straightforward, implementing the program was another story. With the two most powerful cloud servers available and using modern parallel processing techniques, it took several weeks to finish the analysis. As a result, we can clearly see the relationships between the lightning flash rates and the radar dBZ values; we can also see the subtle differences in the relationships for different seasons and different climate zones. This means we can create a proxy radar map from the total lightning data in areas that radar data is not available because radar is not deployed. The proxy radar, as shown, provides visibility into storm activity over areas such as oceans and mountains.
The result? PulseRad and the other technologies we have developed could provide meteorologists, industry, safety officials and governments with additional information and technology to help plan and prepare for extreme weather in the years to come.
At TEDx San Diego, Scripps Institution of Oceanography Director Dr. Tony Haymet discusses a new way way to view greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Scripps and Earth Networks have teamed up to advance atmospheric science with the deployment of the world’s largest network of GHG monitoring stations.
Watch the presentation:
by Earth Networks Vice President of International & Business Development Jim Anderson
This month, Earth Networks begins a new partnership with Weather Decision Technologies. With the agreement, lightning data from both the Earth Networks Total Lightning Network™ (ENTLN) in North America and the Earth Networks Global Lightning Network™, deployed around the world, has been integrated into the WDT weather decision-support product suite.
Nearly 100 utilities and numerous other commercial entities now have access to the largest total lightning detection network in North America. Utilities will be able to pinpoint faults caused by lightning strikes more quickly and accurately, shortening the duration of power outages caused by lightning strikes. Aviation interests such as FBOs (Fixed Base Operators) will have greater visibility into severe weather around airports and aloft, increasing flight safety. And public safety organizations will be able to use the in-cloud lightning detection capabilities of the ENTLN to receive severe weather warnings faster, potentially saving lives and property.
The importance of Total 
Lightning detection cannot be stressed enough. Total lightning includes cloud-to-ground lightning, but also in-cloud lightning that never reaches the ground. Since in-cloud lightning often occurs more than 10 minutes before the first strike to ground, by detecting in-cloud flashes, we can provide earlier warning of impending severe weather as well as lightning hazards. This capability specifically helps utility and electric cooperatives, the aviation industry, the insurance industry, and many other businesses whose operations and mission is impacted by weather.
As severe weather events mount and as development drives people and property into coastal, mountainous and flood-prone areas where severe weather can have a greater impact, advanced warning of severe weather becomes even more critical.
