AccuWeather Upgrades Extreme-Weather Esri-Based Mapping Solution
Innovative SkyGuard Online Deploys Real-Time, Life-Saving Warnings to Desktops, Laptops and Tablets STATE COLLEGE, PA, July 11, 2011 — AccuWeather, Inc. (www.accuweather.com) today introduces the latest upgrade to SkyGuard® Online, the interactive mapping system that uses the Esri ArcGIS 10 Enabled technology to help businesses track how weather will impact their operations.
Through SkyGuard Online, enterprises receive customized, site-specific severe weather warnings that have been demonstrated to save lives. Weather conditions monitored include lightning, flooding, tornados, hail, hurricanes, ice, snow and more. The easy-to-access web interface of SkyGuard Online integrates each customer's assets – such as retail outlets, medical facilities, manufacturing sites, data centers, and transportation routes – with all types of real-time weather information. The site is accessed via desktops, laptops and selected tablets.
New features of SkyGuard Online include:
• Animated Level 2 US radar. The Level 2 NexRAD radar data – the highest resolution radar available in the U.S. and already available in SkyGuard Online – can now be animated, providing an auto-updating, one-hour animation in 5-minute intervals that aids in visualizing the direction and speed of the precipitation.
• Street-level zooming. The high-resolution NexRAD radar (up to 0.5 km resolution in metro areas) can now be combined with street-level mapping, allowing users to pinpoint the intensity level of the precipitation in their area.
• Message Center. This new tool delivers instant, at-a-glance visual notification of SkyGuard Warnings issued for the user’s organization, including severity, start time, and location. Prepared by a SkyGuard meteorologist, the warnings are clickable to the specific location, and include complete details of the severe weather that threatens the asset.
• Consultation contact. For each warning, SkyGuard Online displays details for contacting the SkyGuard meteorologist for consultation.
• Hurricane discussions. For SkyGuard Online hurricane subscribers, there is now even more detailed information, including forecast, rainfall and wind discussions written by AccuWeather’s own team of expert hurricane forecasters.
• Enhanced lightning displays. Added tools include advanced filtering of lightning-strike information for ease in viewing, and new graphical representations of the closeness of lightning to the user’s assets.
• Asset-centered zooms. Upon login, users are immediately taken to a zoomed-in view of their key assets for rapid inspection of those critical areas during a weather emergency.
“SkyGuard Online gives enterprises the accurate, local, customized, proactive, and personalized weather information they need to prepare for mission-critical weather impact,” said Bradley J. Mitchell, Chief Commercial Officer, AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions. “It delivers the real-time view of the weather that organizations require to protect their people, property, and profits.”
In addition to the complete SkyGuard Online turnkey solution, AccuWeather also provides the accurate, comprehensive, and customized weather data and warnings as GIS data so that customers may integrate it into their own systems.
About AccuWeather, Inc. AccuWeather delivers mission-critical, weather-driven, enterprise solutions that assist business, government, media, and institutions worldwide in protecting their people, property and profits from the effects of weather. AccuWeather’s enterprise products include the most accurate, site-specific, customized severe weather warnings, short- and long-range forecasts, and applied weather information. In addition, the 116 AccuWeather meteorologists present forecasts and severe weather bulletins each day to one quarter of a billion persons worldwide via the free AccuWeather.com website, mobile devices and IPTV, through the airwaves, and in print. More than 50,000 third-party Internet sites display AccuWeather content, including the wallstreetjournal.com, CBS News Mobile, and WABC-TV New York. Visit www.accuweather.com for more information.
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