Real-Time Rainfall Monitoring Alerts Gas Company Staff of Severe Weather-Impacted Areas

National Fuel Gas Company (National Fuel) is a diversified energy organization headquartered in Western New York that operates a collection of natural gas assets across four business segments: exploration and production, gathering, pipeline and storage, and utility. The pipeline and storage segment operates over 2,200 miles of transmission pipeline and 31 compressor stations with over 260,000 installed horsepower. The utility segment delivers natural gas to approximately 754,000 customers in New York and Pennsylvania.

National Fuel needed to create an automated process to proactively monitor rainfall throughout its operating territory to meet its own safety goals and the Pipeline Hazardous Materials and Safety Administration’s (PHMSA's) regulatory requirements. These requirements direct that operators perform transmission pipeline facility inspections starting within 72 hours of extreme weather events once that area can be safely accessed by personnel and equipment.

Historically, National Fuel relied upon the professional judgment of its employees to monitor local rainfall accumulations to determine when and where additional pipeline inspections were required.  The broad scale at which rainfall data is presented and variability of weather allowed the possibility that inspection areas might be over or under-assigned.

This project aimed to develop and automate a process for notifying operations personnel when 24-hour rainfall accumulations exceeded severe or extreme rainfall thresholds in specific areas of National Fuel’s operating territory.

The solution is comprised of various ArcGIS Enterprise and ArcGIS Online components. ArcGIS GeoEvent Server was chosen due to its ability to stream and process live radar data and send notifications. ArcGIS Pro was used to publish pipeline facility data to use in GeoEvent Server and provide the front end and analytics for end users. ArcGIS Online was used to house the pipeline facility data, weather data, and the locations of severe and extreme weather events. ArcGIS Experience Builder was chosen to display live radar data and the locations affected by severe weather events—the front end for operations staff. Esri partner Baron Weather provides the live weather data to analyze in GeoEvent Server and display it on the end user map.

To achieve the solution goal, National Fuel used GeoEvent Server to stream the live rainfall accumulation radar data provided by Baron Weather to identify where and when severe rainfall has occurred. Geofences were created for each town in National Fuel’s operating area. Each of these towns was assigned a unique code and list of the personnel responsible for the facilities in each town. When a rainfall radar polygon exceeding a defined threshold intersects one of the town's geofences, fields are toggled in a town feature class, activating it in the map and triggering a notification to the appropriate staff. This solution is timely and allows National Fuel to narrow the inspection focus to more distinct areas, saving time and money.

The solution has allowed real-time notification of granular rain thresholds for a specific area, rather than manually trying to determine the location where a heavy rain event ‘perhaps’ occurred. This has allowed National Fuel to concentrate inspection efforts after heavy rains on a more precise area impacted by certain rain accumulations. The solution gives National Fuel confidence that it is operating its pipeline system safely for all communities and employees while meeting regulatory requirements and minimizing the cost associated with inspection activities.

Baron Weather’s mission is to help its customers make informed weather decisions with confidence.

Baron knows how important the right weather information is to an organization. With a rich history of developing innovative weather technology, Baron delivers the highest quality weather intelligence directly into the hands of decision-makers and those who need it most. The company can help utilities prepare for the challenges weather brings to operations with the most actionable, accurate, analytical, and dynamically displayed weather data available. Baron’s products help users interpret, analyze, and integrate weather information. Accurate and precise information is critical when lives, property, and businesses are on the line. Using the latest machine learning and data science, Baron simplifies the most complex meteorology, providing clear, actionable weather intelligence.