This message is to announce my intentions to develop a hurricane simulation
system for FlightGear.
I've done only preliminary work on locating data resources, and in exploring
the source code to get a grasp of the different systems I'll have to interface
with in FlightGear. This will be my first time working on a project as large
as FlightGear.
My plans are to have a command line option to enable hurricane simulation much
the same as the existing real weather fetch mode does. When enabled the
program will fetch data from NOAA's Tropical Cyclone ICAO (Aviation) Advisory
server. This is a simple text advisory that won't be too difficult to parse. A
sample of this advisory is at the end of this message. I have conversed with
the administrators of that server via email and they appear to have no problem
with the idea. I will write some form of protection to avoid all the
FlightGear clients storming their servers for new advisories at the NXT MSG
times.
The new module will use this data to, by default, render a "best guess"
simulation of any active hurricanes based on the advisories. There is always a
queue of the last 5 storms each in the Atlantic and Pacific regions available
there so any of those 10 storms could be selected by the user to be simulated.
I would also plan on adding a dialog under the environment menu to allow the
user to select any of those storms or to define their own hurricane parameters
for simulation.
To be sure, this will be a very rough simulation of a hurricane, especially
early on.
I want to make sure that there is as little performance overhead as possible
for the model. I essentially want to have the model maintain a table of
conditions, based on storm strength and movement, present at any given region
relative to the storm center, and feed those conditions to the existing
weather modeling structures based on the current user's position.
This would basically be a table of prebuilt models of the different levels of
storm strength that would be selected and positioned based on the advisory
data. I plan to build models for depressions, storms, and category 1-5
hurricanes.
I'm hoping the existing weather modeling code can handle wind speeds in the
150kt+ range!
What I would like to know is who would be a good developer for me to look to
for guidance with integrating this module into the existing framework. Also,
I'm not a meteorologist so I'm hoping to have some mentors to go to if I have
questions about the best way to model various aspects and area's within a
hurricane.
Does anyone have any comments, ideas, or criticisms of this idea before I
really start investing a lot of effort into it? Any individuals I should talk
to before investing a lot of my time into it?
Thanks!
Bob
Below is the current advisory for Tropical Storm Ida:
000
FKNT21 KNHC 092054
TCANT1
TROPICAL STORM IDA ICAO ADVISORY NUMBER 24
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL AL112009
2100 UTC MON NOV 09 2009
TC ADVISORY
DTG: 20091109/2100Z
TCAC: KNHC
TC: IDA
NR: 024
PSN: N2824 W08830
MOV: N 16KT
C: 0991HPA
MAX WIND: 060KT
FCST PSN + 06 HR: 100300 N2936 W08814
FCST MAX WIND + 06 HR: 055KT
FCST PSN + 12 HR: 100900 N3024 W08751
FCST MAX WIND + 12 HR: 050KT
FCST PSN + 18 HR: 101500 N3048 W08721
FCST MAX WIND + 18 HR: 045KT
FCST PSN + 24 HR: 102100 N3100 W08642
FCST MAX WIND + 24 HR: 040KT
RMK THE FORECAST POSITION INFORMATION IN
THIS PRODUCT IS INTERPOLATED FROM
OFFICIAL FORECAST DATA VALID AT 0000...
0600...1200...AND 1800Z.
NXT MSG: 20091110/0300Z
$$
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