AWARe

All of us watch the weather. We watch it particularly closely when we are in remote locations because we often have only us to depend on. We check out the sky. We try to determine how far away is a storm, which direction its moving and how fast its doing so. But a lot of this gets by us. Things happen at night, others occur and change relatively quickly and still others can take place far, far beyond our line-of-sight and still affect our safety. OCENS Acute Weather Alerting and Recognition (AWARe) steps in where the services you’ve come to depend on in our connected world no longer work. AWARe forwards weather and environmental alerts affecting your safety directly to your satellite device or smartphone, anywhere in the world.

AWARe alerts include such events as high wind, hurricane, tornado, heavy rain, lightning, tsunami, and others. For aviators, alerts also include SIGMETs, icing and PIREP reports. AWARe monitors the location that you provide through any of a variety of OCENS services such as SpotCast, FlyCast, or SNAP Tracking and automatically forwards alerts that are of interest to you and pertinent to your location.

Most alerts are available worldwide. Thus, no matter where you trek, travel, cruise or work, AWARe can contribute to your awareness of weather and other phenomena affecting your safety. AWARe alerts originate from national and/or regional weather services and some of the most comprehensive weather models in the world. But they are not perfect nor unassailably complete. OCENS encourages you to always be alert and aware in any remote location and always consult local authorities and information when you can for the best available local knowledge on conditions.

Two essential alert forms are available: As-They-Happen and Forecast alerts. As-They-Happen alerts include such real-time events as lightning, tornado, hurricane, earthquake and SIGMETs. Forecast alerts look ahead over the next 48 hours and use your provided position to identify potential future hazards in close proximity to that location. These forecast alerts include such events as high wind, high wave, and heavy rain/thunderstorm events.

Alerts are also organized for your area of interest, including:

An asterisk (*) associated with an alert type means that this alert is available globally. Alerts without an asterisk are available for US states and territories only. The lightning alert is a special case alert. Lightning monitoring is available for the Northern Hemisphere from 160 E longitude eastward to the prime meridian at 0 longitude.

When activating, AWARe users specify the alerts they want monitored and the phone number of the device which is to receive the alerts. You can also adjust the radius around your location that AWARe is to monitor for weather and other events of concern to you (defaults are provided parenthetically for each of the alert types). Bear in mind that smaller alert circles will result in fewer alerts and a tighter zone of awareness. A 5 mile alert circle may produce very few alerts. More importantly, given the pace of movement of many storm events it also may give you very little advance warning of conditions affecting your safety.

Each location provided to AWARe is monitored for a period of 12 hours following receipt of that location. As-They-Happen alerts that occur before that 12 hour period expires are immediately sent to your target device(s). Forecast alerts behave a bit differently. You will receive a Forecast alert for your target location if a Forecast alert is pending for any time over the next 48 hours for your location. This is monitored for the full 12 hours during which AWARe is on ‘watch’. Looking at this a bit differently, you in effect obtain a 60 hour window into adverse weather for your location for each of the Forecast alerts you are asking AWARe to monitor.

AWARe helps you keep an eye on the weather with tools otherwise unavailable to you in the remote locations you enjoy. It puts to work the satellite devices you’ve purchased or rented and makes them not just a tool for talking or texting but a means of protecting life and limb. Use AWARe to get a heads-up on the worst of the weather, provides foresight into future such events and insight into things in your surroundings near and far affecting you, your family, or your employees.

Sign up for AWARe at http://www.ocens.com/aware. An AWARe profile page to specify is emailed to you after signup is complete. This page allows you to select the alerts of interest to you and the size of the region around each of your fixed assets that you want monitored.

AWARe is available for $10 per month for unlimited alerting or, if you are an active user of OCENS SpotCast, FlyCast, SNAPTrack, OneMail, or OneMessage, the monthly fee is waived and you pay just 25 cents per alert.

Fixed Asset Monitoring with AWARe.

Watching the weather where you can’t.

OCENS Acute Weather Alerting and Recognition (AWARe) service is a global watchdog for natural disasters and extreme weather. A text message to your satellite phone or smart phone is triggered when any one or more AWARe conditions occur or are forecast at or around the location AWARe is monitoring for you. These events included hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, tornadoes, high winds, high waves, lightning strikes, blizzard conditions, and fires. Our aviation portal also monitors SIGMet and PIREPs along your route.

There is a terrific synergy between AWARe and other OCENS services. Many AWARe alerts go out to mobile users who submit AWARe locations with each SpotCast request or SNAPTrack position. Each mobile location is monitored for 12 hours or until a new location is received, whichever occurs earlier.

But AWARe is just as effective monitoring your fixed assets. You bought that remote cabin for that reason, because it was secluded. But that doesn’t mean you are any less interested in knowing if it’s in danger from storm or wildfire. You own valuable equipment that you use for pipeline monitoring. An AWARe notification of winter blizzards or summer tornadoes might give you the time to protect that investment. You’ve moored your boat on the Sea of Cortez while you return home. AWARe lets you know if a hurricane moving up the west coast of Mexico is producing high winds or high waves that you need to worry about at that specific location. After all a little advance warning might allow you to make the call to your local agent to get your vessel to a more sheltered location.

AWARe monitors at a geographical level conventional news coverage cannot. AWARe specifically watches your home, boat, vehicle or other asset, not just the Florida east coast or the Miami area. Not just eastern Washington or the Okanagan. It monitors THE spot on the planet important to you!

AWARe also operates in a time frame most other services cannot. Consider fire monitoring. In general, AWARe can identify a fire for any location on earth within about 3 hours of its detection by the satellite. Fires at least as large as a half mile square are captured by the satellite, relayed to a groundstation, processed and pinged by the AWARe servers, then relayed to you via an SMS alert. How many of us have a means of keeping an eye on the area around our remote assets with that level of turn-around.

AWARe fixed asset monitoring is simple: 1) Provide AWARe the location of your cabin, boat, equipment or other asset; 2) Pick the type or types of natural disaster or extreme weather you want monitored, and 3) Tell AWARe the phone number or numbers you want AWARe alerts sent if something alarming does occur.

Be aware….use AWARe!