back to the future: uw’s space science center innovative video applications in meteorology

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© 2009 WEATHER CENTRAL, LLC

1BACK TO THE FUTURE:UW’s Space Science Center

“Innovative Video Applications in Meteorology”

Back to the Future:UW’s Space Science Center

Innovative Video Applications in Meteorology

Terry Kelly

Chairman and CEO

Weather Central, LLC

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Terry Kelly

• B.S. Meteorology, UW Madison 1971

• Department of Meteorology 1973-1975

• SSEC 1973-1977• TV Meteorologist 1974-1986

(AMS Seal of Approval)• Founded Weather Central in

1974• Founded ColorGraphics

Weather Systems in 1979• AMS Award for Outstanding

Service 1990

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Not Without U.W.!

• Academic appointment 1973

• University/Industry Research Grant: Develop Applied Program

• IVAM Project Meteorologist

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What’s an IVAM?

• “Innovative Video Applications in Meteorology”

• Funded by NOAA 1974-1977

• Verner Suomi, P.I.

• Terry Kelly, Project Meteorologist

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Ambitious Goals

• Make ground-breaking satellite imagery available to markets worldwide

• Develop a production system for television weather:– 30 FPS, NTSC standards, full color, automatic

updates

• National Distribution of “NowCasting”

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“NowCasting”

• Detailed, accurate weather for 0 to 12 hours

• Address specific needs of farmers, pilots, fishermen, agriculture, the public . . .

• Real time updates using McIDAS

• Severe weather alerting

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“McIDAS”

• Man-Computer Interactive Data Access system

• Dr. Richard T. Daly, J.T. Young and other pioneers

• First animated satellite images

• PDP-11 based

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Kelly’s Role – 1974-1977

• Conceive, develop, document prototype weather segments for the public and industry

• Include “futures” such as animation, color transitions, transparency, text crawls

• 1978: First McIDAS-generated weathercast: 6PM in Washington, DC

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1990 Weathercaster’s Presentation

• Video - A brief history of electronic weather presentation

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Weather Central / UW Partnership: Into the 21st Century

• Weather Central “SuperMicrocast” 10 KM overlapping World Grid

• Dr. Greg Tripoli and team: key modeling science

• Weather Central: key developments in severe weather prediction, worldwide applications

• Next: worldwide model downscaled through 1 KM land use/vegetation and topographic models

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Temperature at 20 kms

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Temperature at 1 km

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McIDAS Breakthroughs in 1976-1978

• “AA Command” – allowed “earth navigation” coordinates using visible reference points

• Mapping and Overlays – first “frame buffer”; also allowed text and overlays of “Service A” and “604” data

• “WINDCO” – measurement of cloud direction and speed using “looped” satellite images.

• Archiving and Retrieval on• “Sounder” Group – (Bill Smith, Paul Menzel, Hank

Revercomb)– Next Level remote sensing– “CAT SCANS” of atmosphere

back to the future: uw’s space science center innovative video applications in meteorology

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