Severe Weather Explorer – Interactive Visual Analysis of Large and Heterogeneous Meteorological Data

In this paper we present the results of a joint research project between visualization researchers and experts on meteorology for the purpose of fast and interactive visual analysis of severe weather conditions. The starting situation was, that for severe weather forecasting data from multiple sources each are visualized separately. 3D characteristics of atmospheric data are displayed usually in a reduced 2D form. A general overview and understanding of the complete situation is thereby often difficult and very time-consuming, in some cases even impossible. Expert meteorologists are challenged by this situation especially in time-critical situations, e.g. short-term forecasts of hail or similar phenomena. The goal of the "Severe Weather Explorer" project is the development of a new software technology for 3D interactive visual analysis of meteorological fields resulting from various data sources. The software tool combines three-dimensional visualizations of 3D radar data and results from short-term forecast simulation in a geo-referenced model with interactive visualization of multi-variate measured meteorological data from many data sources. The system also allows the definition of algorithms for the detection of severe weather conditions based on all input data. These algorithms can be automatically checked in realtime for each new measurement and/or simulation result and thus dangerous situations are emphasized for the expert meteorologist, who is responsible for severe weather warnings in shortest possible time. The Severe Weather Explorer enables faster and more accurate warnings. Additionally meteorologists gain new insights in the complex correlations of the different data fields and thereby can improve warnings in a feedback loop.