With 7 IQeye HD megapixel cameras, an on-board server, and OnSSI's Ocularis video management software to simplify capture of all the high-definition video images of tornadoes and severe weather, the BAM Chase Team’s GMC Yukon is well-equipped for the business of storm chasing. In about one year, the system has helped to track upwards of 20 significant storms, providing one of the clearest storm-related video streams online with the ability to capture multiple angles of high-resolution video of severe weather events.
IQinVision announced that when the BAM Chase Team is in search of tornados and other severe weather, they rely on IQeye megapixel technology to record all the action.
With 7 IQeye HD megapixel cameras, an on-board server, and OnSSI's Ocularis video management software to simplify capture of all the high-definition video images of tornadoes and severe weather, the BAM Chase Team's GMC Yukon is well-equipped for the business of storm chasing. In about one year, the system has helped to track upwards of 20 significant storms, providing one of the clearest storm-related video streams online with the ability to capture multiple angles of high-resolution video of severe weather events.
Bryan Kilgore, his wife Amanda Kilgore, and Michael Clark formed the BAM Chase Team to build on their interest in weather and storm spotting. The team monitors computer models and data to forecast when and where a storm may happen and will sometimes travel to multiple storms in one day, though having day jobs can limit their availability. “If we see something, we chase the storms as they're developing,” said Mr. Kilgore.
In the cargo area of the team's Yukon is a custom-built server rack with two servers totaling 3 Terabytes of storage, which serves as the center of a Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) network. Two flat-panel monitors are also mounted in the back of the vehicle. Also, the recent addition of a weather station (rexrepair.com) will allow for live, up-to-date information on weather conditions associated with storms the team is chasing.
4 IQinVision 2-megapixel (1080p) Alliance-mx cameras are mounted on the Yukon's roof to provide a combined 360-degree video view surrounding the vehicle. A 5th camera, an IQinVision 1080p camera on a tripod, is located on the vehicle's dashboard and can be positioned by the driver or front seat passenger in the direction of a storm. A 6th camera on the network is a custom-built IQinVision wireless handheld 1080p camera that enables a team member outside the vehicle to capture video.
Soon a 7th camera will be added for audio/video streaming of the team inside the vehicle to be used on their new premium stream. All IQeye cameras record straight to the server hard drive. “In my opinion, the IQeye camera's performance, quality, and reliability go above and beyond any other manufacturer,” said Kilgore.
The team runs OnSSI Ocularis CS software on the server, enabling them to capture all video from the multiple cameras at one time. Based on when a storm occurred, the team can use Ocularis to pinpoint video from multiple IQeye cameras on screen at once in a quadrant view or a full view of any one camera. The OnSSI software also allows the team to export the video and distribute it to anyone, with the ability to edit it after the fact.
The BAM Chase Team provides a live online video stream to the Severe Studios website (severestudios.com), and the team's videos are also sold to a variety of television stations and turned over to weather professionals at the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and National Weather Service (NWS) for study. BAM Chase video has been featured on the Weather Channel, CNN, ABC, CBS and multiple local media television stations around Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio and Minnesota. Most recently, they were contracted with WXIN Fox59 (fox59.com) as the station's official storm chasing team.
“Mother Nature is very unpredictable, so there's always an element of danger because you never know what a storm is going to do,” said Kilgore. “Because of the element of surprise, we try to help warn the public by giving data and alerting the NWS.” Warnings can also be more personal, such as when the BAM Chase Team warned onlookers of a storm coming on March 2, 2012 while traveling through Henryville, Indiana. “We went back to the buildings and those people were fine. We feel we're saving people's lives with what we're doing.”