Check the Weather  

Drone Operations

Weather conditions, especially wind, temperature, and severe weather, are a primary concern when it comes to drone mission planning and execution.  CustomWeather’s products offer optimal support for mission planning, calculation of trajectory, range, and other flight parameters.

CW100

CW100 is a proven weather forecasting model capable of predicting actionable, near-surface winds and temperatures with unprecedented 100 meter resolution and accuracy. Excels in spatial resolution, accounting for small-scale terrain features, etc.

  • Excellent performance for both daytime and nighttime forecasting.
  • Lightweight: high speed, low cost — can easily be run on a single computer
  • High resolution: 100 meters or less
  • Works everywhere, not limited to observation sites
  • Very accurate near the ground – consistently beats NWP, NWS MOS, and most human forecasters
  • CW100 is not limited to observation sites (airports) or population centers because it relies on gridded data sets that are primarily satellite-derived.

Available variables include:

  • temperature
  • wind speed/direction/gusts at any altitude
  • surface visibility
  • precipitation
  • cloud cover between the surface and 500 meters
  • pressure

Nowcasting: Forecast Conditions via HRRR (High Resolution Rapid Refresh)

In the North American domain, CustomWeather offers high resolution forecasts (3km) at any altitude for the latest on rapidly changing conditions. A wide variety of variables are available in 15-minute increments including radar reflectivity, precipitation, wind speed/direction/gusts, temperature, pressure, and cloud cover.

Globally, CustomWeather delivers hourly forecasts at any altitude including the 10-meter and 80-meter heights that are critical for drone operations. Over 200 different weather variables are available ranging from temperature and wind to more complex weather variables such as convective parameters and a hail index.  Data is available from the current hour out to 15 days.

All weather forecast variables are available from CustomWeather’s Cloud Weather Service for any global latitude/longitude for both the current hour and future hours.

 

CW- Global Estimator: Worldwide Current Conditions Estimation Expertise

CW-Estimator combines the most recent land, sea and space observations with rapid refresh model forecast data to provide highly accurate estimates of surface conditions for any position on the globe.  Estimations are currently available for temperature, wind speed, humidity, dew point, mean sea-level pressure, and 6-hour precipitation.  All available weather station reports are combined with satellite data, short-term weather forecasts and over 500K discrete forecast grid points to provide the best estimates of current conditions worldwide.

Alerts and Advisories

CustomWeather produces valuable localized weather alerts and advisories for major weather developments, including tropical storm and hurricane tracking products.  Alerts can be set up for any weather variable threshold as well as multiple and custom thresholds. In addition to custom advisories, real-time alerts issued from NWS and Environment Canada are also provided.

Examples of alert types:

  • Precipitation
  • Lightning Strike Alerts (US only)
  • High winds
  • Freeze alerts
  • Ice accretion

For more alerts and information about our Severe Weather solutions, click here.

 

Hurricane and Storm Cell Tracking

CustomWeather offers tropical storm and hurricane tracking products for the North Atlantic, North pacific, and Indian Oceans throughout the hurricane season.  In addition, CustomWeather’s Forecasted Significant Weather, created to be used in conjunction with Severe Weather Advisories, assigns a number between 0-100 to represent the significance of weather in a particular location with a focus on precipitation, winds, and temperature. Hurricane current and forecasted tracking includes:

  • Current movement and minimum central pressure.
  • Forecasted storm positions, wind speeds, wind gusts, wind radii, and wave radii for the next 72 hours.

For a more comprehensive list of alerts and information about our Severe Weather solutions, click here.

 

Wind Forecasting Expertise

  • Ability to model wind speeds at ground-level and tower height
  • Diurnal wind cycles captured graphically or in data files
  • Winds and other conditions reported at various levels in the lower atmosphere (10 meters, 80 meters, etc.)
  • Reporting available for any latitude/longitude for both current and future hours
  • Experience with offshore weather forecasting for marine

Historical Wind

CustomWeather provides hourly, historical wind directions, speeds, and gusts for the past year in one-hour increments. Weather data is available for approximately 8400 global locations.

  • Historical point data may be converted to regional values(or any other geographic area) based on mean or population weighted methodology
  • Regions or areas are completely customizable
  • Resolution is at 10 km for any near-surface elevation
  • Model data is down-scaled via dynamic GIS to account for terrain, elevation, aspect, slope and other land impacts

Industry-leading GIS Solutions

CustomWeather’s map server produces maps in real-time according to client-specific requests through an easy-to-use http interface.

  • All of CustomWeather’s content is available in GIS formats and in point data
  • Shape files, OpenGIS-based map layers, NetCDF files
  • Ability to plot hundreds of weather variables for time frames from a few hours to a few weeks
  • Historical data is available globally at 10km grid resolution with further downscaling possible

For more information about our GIS solutions, click here.

Mapping Services

  • Support Open Geospatial Consortium Web Map Server Technology (WMS)
  • Support ESRI Shape Files (approved as both ArcWeb Partner and ESRI Business Partner)
  • Map Tiles: most of our data is now offered as map tiles. We can also support KML/KMZ file conversions

Sample Maps and Reports

CustomWeather’s robust mapping and reporting capabilities can be customized to provide targeted information in a visually engaging format. For a comprehensive overview of our mapping and reporting capabilities, contact us.

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