Severe Weather Nowcasting and Forecasting with Ground Sensors for Hail and Wind

Understory is creating a revolutionary type of data from its ground-truth network of proprietary weather sensors called RTis (real-time instruments). These sensors deliver roof-level measurements of hail and wind impacts. Ground sensors for hail and wind are a new and invaluable way to understand the impact of severe weather events. Understory weather stations are unique in that they provide real-time, industrial-grade measurements of hail momentum and impact angle. They also measure rainfall, wind speed and direction, temperature, humidity, and pressure.

Understory has deployed hundreds of stations in cities throughout the United States including Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, Denver, St. Louis, Minneapolis, and Madison. Blanketing a metro area with stations every 1 to 5 km allows us to determine when and where hail fell and thereby assess the potential for hail-related damage from the storm. This presentation will focus on 2017 severe weather events detected by Understory’s sensor networks and showcase progress in an extremely accurate 6-minute severe hail forecast. We’ll discuss how this information can be visualized and communicated to the public including on-air broadcasts.