StormTours.com has partnered with leading research organizations to integrate the latest state-of-the-science severe weather detection and prediction applications into a customizable Nowcast Decision System (NDS).

NDS ingests radar, satellite, numerical model, lighting, and surface data sets and processes these data through advanced algorithms. The algorithms produce Nowcasts (0-3 hour forecasts) of storm movement and severity including the possibilities of hail, damaging winds, mesocyclones, tonadic activity, and lightning.

Algorithm outputs can be checked against GIS based asset databases and automated warnings can be issued for affected areas. Data and products can be viewed through our custom NDS three-dimensional mobile workstation.

Here is an overview of some of our cutting-edge technology:

Mobile Threat Net

Mobile Threat Net is one of the most popular radar systems used by storm chasers. The system is made by Barons Services of Huntsville, Alabama, the same company that created VIPIR™, a radar platform that has revolutionized the broadcast media. MTN has also revolutionized the way that storm chasers, pilots and mariners get their radar data by pushing the data stream to MTN through satellites, thus we do not have to depend on a cellular network in order to receive weather radar information while moving.

While MTN has the tremendous advantage of having its own data stream, the information must be heavily compressed due to bandwidth limitations of the satellite itself. Since the data is compressed, this creates a low-resolution image. You may be asking yourself why anyone would want a low-resolution image, but the answer is because the data stream is extremely dependable. We'll receive a weather update with this system every 5-mintues, and you'll be able to set your watch to it. Storms can wreck havoc on cellular towers and disrupt cellular communications, but since the transmission point of MTN is in orbit around the Earth, we know that the data stream will always be available.

Gibson Ridge Level 3

GR Level 3 is one of two products that we use from Gibson Ridge, a company that creates quality software products and it is gaining ground in a lot of television markets and also used by several forecasting offices at The National Weather Service as well. Level 3 products use a format called "NIDS" data, which is again a compressed data stream. Raw Doppler radar data files are very large, so by compressing these files they are able to be received by end-users in a more time efficient manner - and sometimes every second counts, so if you only have to wait a few seconds as opposed to a few minutes when downloading updates for weather radar information, it's those few seconds that could make a difference.

Gibson Ridge Level 3 products have a tremendous amount of options and are highly customizable to the end-users preference. The only short-comings these products have as they are used in storm chasing is that storm chasers must receive the data through the use of cellular communications. This is at no fault to the software itself, but it can create problems when cellular communications are unavailable or have been disrupted. This is why we use a combination of cellular communications and satellite communications on our tours - the redundancy insures that we'll also have the latest real-time information to work with.

Gibson Ridge Level 2

Level II data is "raw" data, meaning that it has not been compressed into a lower-quality format. This is "Super Resolution" imagery that provides us with the best view possible from radar that is available. We also have the ability to take a 3D look into the storm and can manipulate the data in several different ways to get the exact information that we want when we need it. While this is the king of weather radar products, it has two short falls.

The first one is again at no fault of its own - it's based on cellular communications and subject to the same failure that it's cousin (GR Level 3) is also subject too. The second short-coming of this product is that each data file is extremely large and can take a fair amount of time to ingest into the viewing platform, sometimes several minutes. Thankfully, more cellular networks in the United States are becoming faster since the roll-out of G3 technology. Obviously while cellular technology becomes faster for broadband needs, the amount of time it takes to ingest these large radar products will decrease.

All of these radar products are excellent tools to have available to our storm chasers in the field, however they do not replace the need for solid judgment skills that are essential for a successful storm chase. Our team members are some of the most experienced and highly-skilled masters within the scope of our special discipline. As often is the case, the most valuable tool that our team members have is their own eyes and their ability to judge a storm based on the visual clues and structural characteristics of a storm.

Communications

We use a wide-variety of communication systems in our vehicles. Some of these systems are dedicated for vehicle-to-vehicle communications so that each vehicle in our party always knows what the tour leader is doing. We also stream the video from the radar platforms in the lead vehicle to LCD monitors to each vehicle behind it. Aside from our own communication needs, we also have radio equipment on-board to communicate with various National Weather Service offices throughout Tornado Alley and report any serious events of severe weather that could become life-threatening to area citizens. If we are able to help warning forecasters issue more accurate warning information to their citizens, then we'll take every reasonable step in order to make that communication and provide them with the information that they need.

Our vehicles are also loaded with quad-tracking digital GPS technology so that we always know exactly what our position is on the electronic mapping tools that we use, including overlaying our position in real-time over Doppler weather radar so we can see where we are in relation to the storm. GPS also helps our team accurately plan our escape routes and general interception strategy to insure that we safely intercept the storms that we encounter.