Presented by Fiona Hatfield, Pelmorex See more FME World Tour 2014 presentations at www.safe.com/recap2014

1. CONNECT. TRANSFORM. AUTOMATE.
We Interrupt your Regularly
Scheduled Broadcast…
Real Time Lightning Alerts
From The Weather Network
Fiona Hatfield
GIS Developer @ The Weather Network

2. Agenda
 Lightning
 Project Overview
 Real-Time Sensors
 FME Processing
 Products

3. Lightning
 Lightning is Dangerous
 Deaths = estimated 9-10 per year
 Injury = estimated 164 per year
 Costs to businesses, infrastructure and insurance
 “Bolts from the Blue”
 Frequency
 lightning flashes occur in Canada about 2.34 million times a
year, including about once every three seconds during the
summer months.
 We benchmark tested 50,000 strikes a second (aka
stormagedon)

4. Project Goals
 Public Alerts through:
 Alerts on TWN’s Website
 Alerts on local TV segments
 Alerts via Text/SMS and Email
 Alerts via Mobile applications
 Also:
 Dynamic maps
 Interactive tools (distance calculator)
“To provide information for the public’s safety and wellbeing”

5. What type of Sensors do you use?
 AVL
 Snow removal equipment
 Fleet tracking (emergency vehicles, taxis, bus
routing etc…)
 Vessel tracking (e.g. exact earth)
 Smart grid
 Refrigerator?
 Smart cars (e.g. tesla)
 Mobile phones, Twitter, Instagram, social media

6. Real-Time Sensors
 Pelmorex Lightning Detection Network

7. Project Infrastructure
TCP/I
P
JSON/JMS
SMS
Email
Mobile
TV

8. Processing
Read record
from data feed
Spatial Filter
(polygon contains
point)
POSTGIS
DB=postgis20
FeatureClass:
land_standard_detail
_lldd (zones)
Zone active
already?
Check if last
strike was within
5mins
no
Update last strike
time
Last_strike_date_time
YES no
Set zone to active
STATUS=ACTIVE
FMESERVER NOTIFIER
Topic: activate_zone
Content: notification_content
yes
POSTGIS
DB=postgis20
FeatureClass:
Strike_status
PROCESS_STRIKES.FMW
POSTGIS
DB=postgis20
FeatureClass:
lightningStokes
Publish workspace with Job Submitter
Send UPDATED
Message to AMQ
Send ISSUED
Message to AMQ

9. Key Transformers used
 TCPIPReciever
 SQLExecutor
 PointOnAreaOverlayer
 Tester
 JSONTemplater
 JMSSender

10. Implementation
Challenges
 Real-time data feed
 Volume of data
 Cross-platform development
 Short time frame
 Limited staff resources
Project
 Six months to develop, test, deploy
 Team: Developers, System Admin, Tester, Project Manager
 Developers: Built, tested, documented system.
 Included a specialist QA/QC tool: Lightning Viewer

11. Products
 Website

13. Products
 Mobile

14. Next Products
 Dynamic Lightning maps on website
 TV &iTV Lightning Maps and Alerts
 Lightning Alerts on all phone platforms
 Push notifications
 User selectable warnings

15. Thank You!
 Questions?
 For more information:
 Fiona Hatfield - fhatfield@pelmorex.com
 Pelmorex Media Inc.
 www.theweathernetwork.com