Plumecast

The concept behind Plumecast developed from my experience visiting industrial and nuclear sites with meteorological equipment to assist responders dealing with hazardous releases. I became aware that existing procedures to give information on risk areas were somewhat slow and required effort from people who would be very busy dealing with an incident.

 

I also knew that modern wind instruments were capable of measurements with fast averaging periods and could measure very low wind speeds. These allow estimates of turbulence to be replaced by actual measurements.

I also knew that the computing power of the PCs sitting on everyone's desk has improved dramatically.

Both these developments allowed a unique solution. It is now possible to run a simple dispersion model continuously and feed it real data in real time.

The result is a system whereby a simple model runs continuously, even if there is no emergency. It updates second by second and thereby provides information on risk areas at a moments notice.