april 30 & may 1, 2010 storms

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Apologies for the use of text in this slide show. This was slide deck is intended to provide the

findings of a Tweet test performed by the Arkansas Geographic Information Office.

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This was Just a Test

Prepared by: Arkansas Geographic Information Office

www.gis.arkansas.gov

All pictures shown; tweeted with #ArwxA KMZ can be downloaded from

http://bit.ly/bKzf5TStill working on date/time format

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#ARwx Tweet TestApril 23-26, 2010

April 29 – May 3, 2010

Prepared by: Arkansas Geographic Information Office

www.gis.arkansas.gov

All pictures shown; tweeted with #ArwxA KMZ can be downloaded from

http://bit.ly/bKzf5TStill working on date/time format

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There is a geographic component to TweetsAll tweets were not located properly during this test

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There is a geographic component to TweetsLocation is a significant component

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Purpose of Test• Determine twitter use for an event• Determine acceptance of a hashtag• Determine acceptance of geoenabled tweets• Figure out if this is useful

http://www.srh.noaa.gov/lzk/?n=svr0410a.htm

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Order of events

LR NWS reports strong thunderstorms, and possible tornadoes for the weekend

AGIO implements an API that will capture Tweet information with the hashtag #ARwxAGIO tweets “Pls consider enabling geotagging, and using the #ARwx hashtag”RT by several individuals, ADEM, and Arkansas.gov

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Results April 23-26, 2010

• Safe Software Twitter Workbench worked properly– Data was captured and stored in a database– Data can be viewed in GoogleEarth

• Tweets– 32 unique users– 10 geotagged (lat/long)– 77 profile was used to locate– 9 could not be located– 96 total number of tweets during this event

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Results April 23-26, 2010

• Safe Software Twitter Workbench worked properly– Data was captured and stored in a database– Data can be viewed in GoogleEarth

• Tweets– 32 unique users– 10 geotagged (lat/long)– 77 profile was used to locate– 9 could not be located– 96 total number of tweets during this event

Yeah!!!

Not a ‘significant’

Event

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Information Captured

• Date / Time Created• Tweet ID• Tweet Text• Tweet User• Tweet User Profile Image• Location (lat-long / profile)• Search Text = #arwx• Geometry

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Results April 30-May 3, 2010

• Safe Software Twitter Workbench- Failed*– A number of tweets were not captured

• Issues identified:– Number of Twitter API calls per hour– Configuration of scripts

» Each of these are being addressed for next test

• An export from Twapper allowed analysis– Captured Tweets– Georefrenced using profiles captured from failed test– Manually inserted several based on profile

description– Exported to KML*Failure of the workbench was due to implementation; not the Safe Software product

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Results April 30-May 3, 2010

• Tweets– 219 unique users– 19 geotagged (lat/long)– 1,425 profile was used to locate– 135 could not be located– 1,579 total number of tweets during this event

• Users– Most tweets by a single user 100– User retweeted the most 108 (@wxmandan – LR

NWS)

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Process Used to Generate KML

• Exported #ARwx from Twapper• Performed table join based on userid to the

data captured from the failed test– Inserted location to a number of tweets from

Twapper• Removed duplicates• Attempted to adjust date and time to CST• Ran Safe Software workbench to generate a

kml

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

Event was primarily southeast of this area. Twitter activity corresponds.

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

Tweets increased as event unfolded and decreased as threat subsided.

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General ObservationsApril 30 – May 3, 2010

That’s just cool.

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General Test Observations• Determine twitter use for an event

– Twitter proved useful for communicating the events as they unfolded. Tweets provided on the ground information and pictures.

• Determine acceptance of a hashtag– The hashtag was generally accepted, but took roughly 18 hours for

uptake• Determine acceptance of geoenabled tweets

– The majority of tweets were not geotagged. Several profiles did not allow for any location information to be identified.

• Figure out if this is useful– No doubt twitter is useful for communicating events. The next step

will be evaluating protocols needed for real-time analysis and bi-directional communication

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The power of location

Why test the use?

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County Boundaries

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Earthquake Intensity

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Roads

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Bridges

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Bridges

For Example:Crowd source damage

assessments following an earthquake

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Considerations• Network

– Assumes network access– Assumes Twitter (in this case) is available

• Education– Enabling geotagging

• Acceptance– Geotagging– Ability to provide reports

• Mapability– API works properly– API provides useful information

• Usability

– Filtering the noise• Can the appropriate protocols be put in place to make this a

useful tool for hearing those that ‘call for help’ or submit ‘field reports’?

– The handling of date/time stamps

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Summary

The recent events have provided us with good information to use in our test. We will continue to analyze the information and determine how the power of the technology might be further used in future events.

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Learon.Dalby@arkansas.govTwitter: @learondalby

http://www.slideshare.net/learondalby

Special Thanks to @Kirrilian for technical work