towards a new standard in the field of crowd-sourced

Thomas Krennert (1), Rainer Kaltenberger (1),

Georg Pistotnik (1), Alois M. Holzer (2)

(1) ZAMG Vienna, Austria ([email protected])

(2) ESSL, European Severe Storms Laboratory

Towards a New Standard in the Field of Crowd-Sourced Weather- and Impact- Observations

mailto:[email protected]

Reliable information about weather impacts

T. Krennert, et al., TSN – A Crowd Sourcing Standard for Impact Observations? 2/18/2018

Current Crowdsourcing-Methods in Meteorology

Crowd-sourced Measurements • Private Stations • Mobile Sensors • IOT - Internet of

Things

Data Mining in Social Media • Information

Retrieval • Word Crawling • Image Pattern

Recognition

Crowd-sourced Human Observations • Reporting apps

• Targeted Human

Assessment • Standardized

Parameters • Quality Management • Training • Collaborations


Forecasting Warning Climate Science

ESWD REPORT CRITERIA & QUALITY CHECK

General Public Homepage / Web - apps

QC1 QC0+ QC0

QC0: as received / no training QC0+: plausibility check passed / basic training QC1: report confirmed / TSN training & licensing QC2: event fully verified / scientific case study

Collaboration since 2009: Trusted Spotter Network Austria

API Severe weather

reports

Training

AP

I

www.zamg.ac.at/tsn


TSN – Training activities @ ZAMG

Spotter ID: AT2067TSN

ESWD Criteria

Science Case Studies


TSN – Rated best practice by EMS


Challenges

• Comprehensive training necessary for complex ESWD thresholds

• Uncertainties regarding thresholds may lead to inhibition to report events

• Still complicated way to file reports digitally via the ESWD homepage

• Small group of trained observers in Austria (~200 QC0+, ~80 QC1)

• Increase the number of reports / question of resources, cost-benefit ratio?

• Simplify reporting criteria / reporting process? Relevant information?

• Report parameters ubiquitous for Europe?


https://www.essl.org/cms/european-severe-weather-database/ewob/

• European Weather OBserver EWOB, developed by ESSL as native app with its own DB

• Parameters are clearly structured and well defined by weather impacts

• Severe event reports are automatically forwarded to the ESWD

• Available in more than 20 languages

• Most substantial coverage for impact – report parameters

Introducing EWOB

Choose weather type

Take a picture

Add other info

send


Introducing EWOB report criteria

Hail less than 1 cm

Strong wind

No precipitation

Rain or Snow

Hail

Strong Wind

Whirlwinds

Bad Visibility

Close Lightning

Flooding

Fresh Snow Height

Land Slide / Avalanche

Other Phenomena


EWOB reports on display


Connecting to the EWOB database via API

Automated

European NMHSs

Operational &

Scientific Applications

Parameter & Training

Standardization

AP

I

Existing & established NMHSs

reporting apps API


E

Trusted Spotter Network – Potentials on the European scale?

Training & Science

AP

I

ESWD Report Criteria

QC1 QC0+ QC0

Basic Training Spotter Groups & Public Anonymous ID

Advanced Training Trusted Spotters Personalized ID

Automated

EWOB Database

No Training General Public NMHS Apps & Tools

Non severe

& severe

severe

Weather & Impact Observations

European NMHSs

Operational &

Scientific Applications

Parameter & Training

Standardization


Technical Scheme (Draft)

EWOB-APP

National- EWOB-DB

Feeds on national level (examples):

Spotter Groups

Trusted Spotter Network

Other collaboration

partners’ apps

Other native apps or HTML5-forms

E-Learning QC0+ Spotter-DB

Push

Push and Pull Push and Pull

Push

Personal Training (QC1) Workshops Personal Invitation to events

www.trustedspotter.at/.eu

Outreach to General Public

Communication User management

Communication

QC0 / QC0+ / QC1

Sub

-Nat

ion

al le

vel

Euro

pe

an le

vel

NM

HS-

leve

l

ESWD-DB

EU - EWOB-DB

Scientific community

QC0/QC0+ QC1/QC2

Pull

EWOB-Interface

Authentification

Fore

cast

er

Fee

db

ack

Lo

op

Other National- EWOB-DB

National- EWOB-DB

Push


EWOB-Interface standardized reporting parameters

… provide feedback

• Currently, feedback to the Forecaster is often missing or not sufficient yet

• Modern communication technologies allow to close feedback-loop in real-time

• Feedback with: 1. Standardized weather- and impact observation parameters,

2. Quality controlled reports and 3. Trained observers

• Using impact obs. for verification of impact based warnings and forecasts

• National Impact-Databases: Synergies within EUMETNET activities?

Feedback Loop in Severe Weather Warnings

NMHSs

Emergency response units Customers

General public … and others …

… issue warnings


Highlights

• TSN Austria – EMS best practice for reliable human crowd sourced observations

• ESWD – scientifically widely established standard of severe weather reports

• EWOB – database of standardized weather- and impact observations

• Combination of established standards of reporting parameters, QC and training

• Standardized, minimum intersecting set of reporting parameters on EU level, flexible

national parameter set

• Integration of EWOB data base within pre-existing reporting apps from European

NMHSs via API, NMHSs operate as national hubs

Invitations:

• FMI, ESSL and ZAMG started communication on standardization

• ESWD / EWOB user forum 14-15 March: open discussion on reporting parameter set

Collaboration for standardization between European NMHSs possible?

Within the EUMETNET framework?


towards a new standard in the field of crowd-sourced

Documents