Google earth storm survey

[John Farley]

The Lincoln, IL NWS has posted a Google Earth storm damage survey for the tornadoes and wind damage of August 19. There are links to damage reports, damage photos, and tornado photos with the location pinpointed on a Google Earth map. I'm not sure if other offices have posted storm surveys like this one, but this is the first I have seen - the next level in storm survey reporting, for sure! You can see it at:

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/ilx/?n=google_storm_survey_8/19/09

Note - you need to have the Google Earth add-on for your browser to view these maps, but there is a link to get it if you don't have it.

Hint - be sure to use the zoom feature. When you zoom in on any of the three tornado paths on the map, you can see quite a bit more info than is apparent on the map that first comes up. Nice work, Lincoln NWS!

 

[Kiel Ortega]

I've been doing a similar thing for our damage surveys we've done in support of the phased array radar here at NSSL. It's a little behind (I have a few from this year that are hidden on a secure page but I haven't put them on this public page), but it's all the surveys we've completed since the PAR went in. This will be awesome if more offices did this for high end events.

 

[Marcus Hicks]

Thats awesome. I'd like to see that used by more offices. I really like that.

 

[Andrea Griffa]

Yes, that's really interesting. I think we all should adopt this method of survey damage.

 

[Ian Miller]

this has great potential to gather a great amount of data and record it almost as it happens.

 

[joel ewing]

Just curious, I counted 15 plus tornado icons along that path. Is this to be understood that there were 15 or more separate tornadoes viewed and recorded during this event? Something about that doesn't seem quite right to me.

Thanks for posting this. It really is an upgrade in reporting, imo.

Good luck to anybody out chasing the south plains tomorrow (10-8-09)!

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

Just curious, I counted 15 plus tornado icons along that path. Is this to be understood that there were 15 or more separate tornadoes viewed and recorded during this event? Something about that doesn't seem quite right to me.

Thanks for posting this. It really is an upgrade in reporting, imo.

Good luck to anybody out chasing the south plains tomorrow (10-8-09)!

Each tornado icon is a single point where there was a tornado related damage report. Clicking the icon will bring up what was reported, and the estimated wind speed and tornado rating at that point. The solid red line connects the solid tornado tracks.

 

[Tyler Burg]

I think* I remember seeing one of those google maps on Valleys/OAXs Assessment of the Aurora tornado June 17 this year. Maybe I'm thinking of something else though. But certainly a good idea.

EDIT: nevermind, they just used a non-interactive google maps "screen shot" type deal... http://www.crh.noaa.gov/gid/?n=june17_2009_aurora_tornado