Hyperlocal Rainfall – Meniscus

UK map of consented discharges to rivers and groundwater

meniscus — Wed, 19 Oct 2022 12:44:41 +0000

MAP of consented discharges to rivers – beta version

Overview

We have created a map showing the location and details of all consented discharges to rivers and groundwater for England. We are planning to extend this to both Wales and Scotland if we can obtain the consent data in a suitable format from Natural Resources Wales and SEPA.

The map shows all main UK rivers and the location of any consented discharge to both rivers and groundwater. Also included are the locations of all Combined Sewer Overflows (black icon) in England. For all consents (orange icon) where the discharge is to river, then we have added the expected location of the consented discharge into the river (blue icon at the end of a green line).

Consents to discharge near peterborough

The map will use your current location (subject to you granting access) to display relevant data. For access on a mobile phone then the area you can view is limited to ensure the site loads quickly. On a PC then you can access a larger area.

Purpose

The idea for the site arose during the Big Rivers challenge at the Northumbrian Water Innovation festival. Meniscus were part of a team, including Meniscus, ESRI and NWL employees to develop a prototype app for Open Water swimmers to understand risk from pollution events. Whilst a lot of the data to deliver such an app is currently not available as a public dataset, we have created this dashboard as a first step to allow river users to identify discharges into rivers.

Information your would like to see

Please let us know if there is additional information that you would like us to try and include in the map. We cannot promise to make changes but we will always look to see what can be done.

Background on MAP Rain

More information on MAP Rain click here

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MAP Rain model infographic

meniscus — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 13:51:56 +0000

MAP Rain model infographic shows some of the analytics solutions built using the MAP Rain model

MAP Rain is a generic real-time model built using MAP for processing, primarily, radar and forecast rainfall data. The model delivers all the underlying process of fusing the historic, current, Hyperlocal (our own 1-hour forecast) and forecast rainfall data together for any area, resolution, or size of cutout (the area over which we process the rainfall data). Built into MAP Rain are lots of methods to re-sample, aggregate, extract and re-process the rainfall data. These ensure we have the flexibility to apply rainfall data to any point or polygon in the overall cutout area. All these methods are available as API calls.

We use MAP Rain to build a broad range of applications that have rainfall data at their heart. The number of such applications continues to rise and we can deliver all these applications to multiple customers on one instance of MAP.

More information on MAP Rain

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Current Hyperlocal Storm alerts

meniscus — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 21:14:20 +0000

These are the Hyperlocal Storms alerts (beta) identified around the UK for today. Using real-time radar rainfall we are tracking the path of areas of high-intensity rainfall and predicting their movement over the next hour, at 5-minute increments, using a machine learning algorithm. As these Hyperlocal Storms pass over any village, town or city we generate an alert. For customers interested in particular cities then we can create the alerts for any postcode sector in the city.

This is part of our MAP Rain service. For more information then click here.

We have created our own Hyperlocal Rainfall predictions for the past 5 years. Click here for more information and you can download the Hyperlocal Rainfall app on both the Google Playstore and the Apple App Store.

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MAP Rain – new forecast alert dashboard

meniscus — Mon, 04 Nov 2019 16:00:54 +0000

Our new MAP Rain alert dashboard now makes it much easier to keep track of forecast rain alerts for Points and Polygons in your area of interest. The alert dashboard updates every 5 minutes, as new rainfall data arrives, and updates the colour of your Points and Polygons depending on the level of flood risk. The alert dashboard also displays an animation of the forecast rainfall across the UK

The new forecast alert dashboard provides a simple way to see the alert status of your Points and Polygons along with an annimation of the forecast rainfall for the next 36 hours. We have designed this as a simple way to monitor flooding risk 24/7.

For a live demonstration of MAP Rain then click here and set Username and Password both to demo.

Toggling between current (Query) view and new Alert view

We have added a new button which switches between the existing view of the dashboard and the new Alert view.

New Alert view

The purpose of this new Alert view is to provide customers with a simplified 24/7 view of the rainfall and associated alerts in their area of interest.

Click on the “Show Alarms” button to see the forecast state of your Points and Polygons
The Alert colour will change as the alert state changes. The Points and Polygons will default to show the green Clear alert
The dashboard refreshes every 5 minute so both the dashboard and the emailed alerts will be synchronised
You can add an animation of the forecast rainfall for the next 36 hours. The animation shows the forecast rainfall for each hour and continuously replays. You can customise the speed of the update, the opacity of the image and the forecast duration
You can stop the animation and use the Show Rainfall button to select historic or forecast rainfall for a particular time using the time slider that will appear. Note: The Points and Polygon alerts will not display historic colour changes, they only show show forecast alerts
The forecast rainfall is displayed for the whole of the UK so you can have a better understanding of the rain that will impact your area of interest.
Can switch back to the original dashboard view using the “Switch View” button.

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MAP Rain – Updates in the Works

meniscus — Tue, 05 Dec 2017 11:44:40 +0000

Rainfall map and analytics dashboard helps deliver rainfall predictions for any point or polygon

MAP Rain is our high performance, flexible and scalable cloud-based solution for rainfall predictions and flood monitoring analytics. As a result, we can deliver a rainfall map with location specific rainfall analytics for any point and any area of interest.

Click here for more information on MAP Rain and the rainfall map and dashboard

Arrange a web demonstration

Updates in the Works:

Rainfall analytics updates

New alerts – New alerts now are Red (Forecast exceeds high limit 12 hours from now Amber (Forecast Exceeds high limit less than 12-hours from now) and Clear (Forecast goes below high limit)
Self -service for Points of Interest and Catchments: We are working on a way for customers to add Points and Polygons themselves. This will let you change your own high limits.
Forecasts – We are using a 36-hour forecast for sending rainfall prediction alerts about the risk of flooding and looking to move to a longer forecast, 5-days – 7-days.
Catching summer Storms – Our Hyperlocal Rainfall solution gives short term accurate predictions of rainfall by ‘tracking’ the path of the existing rain. For every 1km2 cell in the UK we create 12 predictions over the next hour, refreshed every 5 minutes. This is good for picking up those summer storms. So, we will integrate this into MAP Rain and combine it with existing forecasts.

Rainfall map and dashboard updates

Screenshots Feature – We are working on a way for customers to take screenshots of Radar rainfall displayed and automatically download it. This helps create reports of historic events.
Raster files in GIS – Similar to the screenshot feature. We are implementing a way of saving the rainfall map image displayed which can then be imported into your GIS application and overlaid onto maps.
Simplified menu – We are adding an extra menu to MAP Rain. This lets users switch between a simplified menu for beginners and a more advanced menu.

If you’d like to see other features added then let us know

Need Help with a Flood Investigation?

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Hyperlocal Rainfall – Traffic Diversion

meniscus — Thu, 29 Jun 2017 08:44:49 +0000

Hyperlocal Rainfall is an add on to our core MAP Rain solution. Using the latest radar rainfall data it predicts the path of the every rain cell (1km x1km) every 5 minutes for the next hour. When new radar rainfall arrives (which is every 5 minutes) it creates another set of predictions so you get the most accurate and up to date predictions possible.

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MAP Rain – Analytics for Flood Investigations

meniscus — Wed, 21 Jun 2017 12:45:11 +0000

MAP Rain – Delivering the analytics for flood investigations

MAP Rain is our high performance, flexible and scalable cloud-based solution for rainfall and flood monitoring analytics. MAP Rain delivers location specific rainfall analytics for any point and any area of interest.

Web Demo

Flood Investigation

We are currently working with our new clients Hertfordshire County Council and East Sussex County Council to calculate what their high limit properties should be set to at each of their Point and Catchment locations using their historic flood events. They have sent us a list with all their flood incidents that have occurred over the past 3 years. Each incident had a date, time and x and y coordinates associated to them and this data is imported into ‘R’ (‘R’ is an open source programming language and software environment for statistical computing and graphics that is supported by the ‘R’ Foundation for Statistical Computing. The ‘R’ language is widely used among statisticians and data miners for developing statistical software and data analysis). Using ‘R’ we were able to transform each x, y coordinate into a unique RESTful API link. This allowed us to automate the process of getting the results for each of the flood events directly from MAP Rain into the ‘R’ programe. The results we pulled from MAP Rain for each flood event was as follows:

API 30 – API 30 is used to calculate how saturated a particular area is based on the past 30 days of rainfall and soil types.
Return Period – For this we are use the Bilham method (we will be writing an article on the relationship between the FEH99 and Bilham methodology)
Rainfall intensity – This is calculated in mm/hr

We will be using this information to find a relationship between each property and the Flood Event alarms so that we can accurately send out alerts based on current and forecasted radar rainfall data.

To keep updated on this please email sales@meniscus.co.uk

For more information on MAP Rain then click here

Need Help with a Flood Investigation?

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Download the Hyperlocal Rainfall App on Android and iPhone

meniscus — Thu, 25 May 2017 14:40:22 +0000

Meniscus Systems have officially released the Hyperlocal Rainfall App onto iTunes.

Users can now download the app on:

Android – Google Play

iOS – iTunes

The simple-to-use ‘Hyperlocal Rainfall’ App uses GPS location for point-to-point journeys, to provide highly-localised rainfall predictions for imminent time-windows, allowing users to plan their journeys. Using the App allows them to undertake healthy activities, to save wasted time or dress appropriately – making life better – by using constantly shifting and updated detailed data to predict localized rainfall and rain-free periods. The App can help answer questions such as:

Can I cycle or do I have to drive?
Will it rain soon and save me watering the garden or
do I need to get the hose out?
Can I walk the dog now, or a bit later, and avoid ‘wet dog’ syndrome?
Can I walk or cycle now without getting soaked?
Can I leave my raincoat at home or should I take it?
Is it OK to put the washing out?
Is today the right day to fix the roof?
Do we have a BBQ today?

The main benefits from using the Hyperlocal Rainfall:

Predictions are based on actual rainfall that is updated every 5 minutes so they are accurate
Allows users to skip forward in time to see if they can delay their Journey start
Users can see the predicted rainfall along the course of their Route
Can create specific Hyperlocal Hotspots for any Council. This ‘opens’ a window around an area so that anyone can use the app in this area. Specifically created for Councils and Smart Cities so that the app remains free to residents.
All API based so information can be readily integrated into your own platforms/services

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