About

The Spotter Network is dedicated to bringing the critical information storm spotters have to those that need it. The network is a combination of locally installed software for position and status reporting, and web based processing and mapping.

The Spotter Network systems are officially owned and operated by AllisonHouse LLC and its staff. It is run as a public service taking input from the various communities that it serves and sending output to same.

Though National Weather Service staff and offices utilize the data that flows through the network, the Spotter Network is in no way sanctioned or affiliated with the NWS nor any of the other government agencies that benefit from spotter information and coordination efforts.
The Spotter Network utilizes the public Internet for it's network transport systems. The backend systems utilize what is commonly referred to as LAMP technology. In this case LAMP stands for Linux, Apache Web Server, MySQL database and PHP programming language.

The server(s) themselves are commodity servers leased from ServerBeach running a hardened Linux operating system. The server(s) are dedicated to SpotterNetwork services, and are not shared with other people, companies or entities. They are physically located in the commercial grade ServerBeach hosting facilities.

The web based mapping software utilizes the Google Maps API and its related AJAX interfaces for event and position reporting.

The Windows Spotter Network agent is a custom built VB.NET application that utilizes the Franson GPStools technology to facilitate automated position reporting. The agent was designed and built by a third party but AllisonHouse LLC has retained full source code rights for the agent. Those users who do not wish to run a .NET application, and/or one of the supported Microsoft Windows operating systems, are highly encouraged to develop and distribute their own agent. AllisonHouse LLC will do everything within our power to help you in your development efforts. Those unable to develop their own agents can utilize the web interface, at the cost of not having GPS integration.

The original Spotter Network went operational in April 2006 and quickly grew to over 100 spotters. Since that time, several National Weather Service employees and other officials have taken an interest in the capabilities it brings to them to integrate ground truth provided by spotters into their operational responsibilities. All at ZERO cost to them. A version two of the Spotter Network agent was released shortly after with some basic functionality improvements and the ability to push data to the agent from within the Spotter Network. Later versions of the backend systems expanded the coordinator and reporting capabilities and the NWS eSpotter integration was completed in early September 2006.

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Spotter Network in action!

A hurricane chaser heading in	3 spotters team up to work a storm
25 spotters on the same storm!