5.3
ESP:LIVE
Joe DiGiovanni, Weather Central, Inc., Madison, WI
Summary Providing immediate severe weather notification and analysis along with short-term threat projections to the viewing public in a visually informative way is both critical and invaluable to the broadcast industry. Weather Central, Inc. has always provided exceptional tools and methods for presenting severe weather conditions to viewers. Generalized short-term forecasts and convective outlooks can be used to notify the public to severe weather threats, but these are not nearly adequate enough to provide hyper-local details that viewers depend on to make immediate and potentially life-saving decisions about where they live, work, and play.
Weather Central, Inc. has expanded its existing :LIVE technology to create the most advanced storm tracking and nowcasting weather display product available, ESP:LIVE. Weather Central has also partnered with Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. (WDT) to provide numerous severe weather analysis and forecast products that will be displayed using the new ESP:LIVE, exclusive storm prediction system. ESP:LIVE provides a comprehensive suite of local severe weather analysis algorithms and short-term projections of severe weather features that are currently unavailable to the broadcast market. ESP:LIVE will inform viewers of all severe weather threats by graphically displaying current locations and future track information of potential tornadoes, storm rotation, damaging wind gusts, and large damaging hail. The ESP:LIVE product will make your station the market leader in local severe weather forecasting and notification.
What is ESP:LIVE? ESP:LIVE is the new comprehensive storm tracking and severe weather nowcasting system from Weather Central, Inc. The system will provide complete severe weather coverage through the use of radar velocity and reflectivity data, a severe weather analysis package, and nowcast (short-term) forecasting tools. The system will display radar imagery either through a live radar interface (using EEC, ADC, RadTec, or Baron) or from a WSR-88D Level II Nexrad server. The system will also consist of two primary severe weather product suites: TelePATH™ and X-Vision™.
The TelePATH product suite consists of severe weather analysis and short-term projection tools that include: FunnelPATH™, MesoPATH™, CellPATH™, GustZONE™, and HailZONE™. These products use sophisticated severe weather algorithms that pinpoint the locations where an immediate threat exists for specific severe weather events. These algorithms also provide a short-term (20-30 minute) projection that indicates where severe weather features will move and when they will arrive at particular locations.
The X-Vision 3D Radar uses high resolution Level II Nexrad radar information to visually display the 3-dimensional structure within thunderstorms. The critical information provided by X-Vision enhances the severe weather analysis and alerting capabilities of your station weather team. The Level II Nexrad data used by X-Vision provides the highest resolution radar information available with 10 times greater reflectivity precision due to the higher resolution intensity interval. On-air graphical display is enhanced with 16 times more color levels than traditional radar data. These features produce greater local precision that more accurately shows viewers where significant severe weather threats are located and where they are heading. Using this high resolution data in X-Vision creates visually accurate and more precise identification of severe weather threats in your DMA and makes viewer notification more efficient, increasing your ability to protect them.
Weather Central, Inc. integrates this product into ESP:LIVE, the most advanced storm tracking and nowcasting weather display product available. ESP:LIVE expands on an extensive collection of proven technology from Weather Central, Inc. ESP:LIVE will use X-Vision to pinpoint severe weather threats across the viewing area on a hyper-local level, immediately informing viewers what action they need to take to protect themselves and their families. X-Vision will be used in conjunction with meaningful, clearly understood icons that can be used to highlight severe weather threats like storm rotation, including tornadoes, damaging winds, large hail, and heavy
rains. Labeling and highlighted the significant aspects of thunderstorms that viewers can easily understand will make your station the leader in severe weather coverage. Your dependable and reliable coverage of severe weather events will also attract new viewers and retain existing viewers. The X-Vision product in ESP:LIVE will make your station the market leader in local severe weather forecasting, analysis, and notification.
ESP:LIVE Reliability The speed of delivery and accuracy of data is critical during severe weather events. Severe weather information and forecast products used in ESP:LIVE are associated with the most advanced severe weather research organizations in the world. Extensive quality control is implemented by Weather Central and WDT to provide the most accurate severe weather tracking and forecast information available. The X-Vision 3D Radar Slice is an extremely valuable product, and as a result we have chosen to process this data directly on-site at a customer location to ensure the information is provided to the station for on-air use in as timely manner as possible. The severe weather data being used by ESP:LIVE has proven reliable in numerous operational settings across the country.
Conclusion ESP:LIVE is the most advanced storm tracking and nowcasting weather display product available. Weather Central has expanded its :LIVE technology and partnered with Weather Decision Technologies, Inc. (WDT) to provide numerous severe weather analysis and forecast products that will be displayed using the new ESP:LIVE, exclusive storm prediction system. ESP:LIVE provides a comprehensive suite of local severe weather analysis algorithms and short-term projections of severe weather features that are currently unavailable to the broadcast market. ESP:LIVE will give you most comprehensive severe weather tracking and nowcasting tools possible in order to give your station the ability to notify viewers and help them make immediate and short-term decisions about where they live, work, and play. ESP:LIVE will give you the power to dominate your local market and be the station to trust in all severe weather notification and forecasting situations.
Session 5, Capital Ideas - Vendor Session
Tuesday, 2 August 2005, 4:30 PM-5:26 PM, Diplomat Ballroom
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