Sample Litigation Cases

  • Hurricane
  • Turbulence
  • Tornado
  • Thunderstorm
  • Rogue Wave
  • Fog & Smoke

On August 29, 2005 Hurricane Katrina made landfall near Buras, LA, causing catastrophic damage in southern Louisiana and Mississippi. To reconstruct weather conditions during hurricanes like Katrina, we often rely on NOAA weather data, such as Doppler radar loops (left image), post-storm wind speed analyses (middle image) and satellite imagery (right image). 
katrina radar loop
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 katrina wind speeds
katrina-satellite loop
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The following images were created for an aviation accident that occurred due to turbulence in a severe thunderstorm on April 19, 2006. The left image is a Doppler radar image with the aircraft track indicated by the dark pink line and circles. The right image shows that the area of interest was under a Convective SIGMET Advisory, issued by the National Weather Service's Aviation Weather Center.
Aviation Radar with Track Image Aviation Convective Sigmet



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The deadly 2008 "Super Tuesday" tornado outbreak occurred on February 5 & 6, 2008. Eighty-seven tornadoes occurred over the course of the outbreak, which lasted over 15 hours. The outbreak was the deadliest in the era of modern NEXRAD Doppler radar, with 57 people killed across four states and 18 counties. Left image shows the major tornado tracks. Center image is the NEXRAD radar loop from Nashville. An example of the damage is shown in the right image.

Tornado Tracks 		Nashville Tornado Loop
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Tornado Damage
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A thunderstorm downburst caused damage to the Orange County (FL) Convention Center on May 30, 2002. The left image shows nearly 2,000 lightning strikes within 5 miles of the convention center. The NEXRAD reflectivity loop (center image) shows the severe thunderstorm move over the convention center.  The right image shows the NEXRAD velocity loop showing a strong outflow (green area) from the thunderstorm, causing wind gusts of over 70mph.
Thunderstorm Lightning Image


Click on images for full size		 Thunderstorm Reflectivity Loop
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 Thunderstorm Velocity Loop
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On April 16, 2005 the Norwegian Dawn cruise ship encountered heavy seas off Charleston, SC, causing  injuries and damage to the ship.  We reviewed the wave heights (left image), velocities of the currents (middle image) and the effect of pitch with the given conditions (right image). The ship likely encountered one or more rogue waves of over 60 feet.
WW3 loop
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 Current Velocities
wave vs pitch
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The satellite image on the left was created for an automobile accident caused by low visibility. MODIS satellite imagery, with an applied fog product, shows areas of fog (yellow) and a small area of smoke from a prescribed burn (blue) where the accident occurred. On the right, a GOES satellite image with the fog product was analyzed for another traffic accident in low visibility.
MODIS Fod and Smoke image
 GOES Fog Image
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