Iasoberg™ Technology · Validation
A five-year study (2009–2013) compared the Technology's severe-weather forecasts against official NOAA hail reports across the continental United States. Here is what the record shows.
In 2009, our research indicated that certain iasoberg™ patterns correlated with severe weather activity in the continental USA. The general iasoberg™ output algorithms were modified to identify these patterns on a daily basis, year-round.
A study was then initiated to correlate the revised Technology's forecast of potential severe-weather days against the NOAA severe weather reports for each day and year. Forecasts have since been generated for every subsequent year. The most recent forecasts identify potential severe-weather days — days flagged for a large number of hail events and those with the potential for tornado outbreaks — with a set of days specifically nominated as predictions for high hail-event activity.
An iasoberg™ (pronounced ice-o-berg) is the name given to a very small force, unexplained by the current theory of gravity, that exists in regions on and near the Earth at a particular instant. The term also refers to the graphic representation of those regions — shown as bands and lines across the Earth's surface, typically viewed in a mapping application such as Google Earth.
This small force arises from what is known as the Allais Effect. The concept holds that the gravitational fields of the Sun and the black hole at the centre of our galaxy are deformed — much as space-time is deformed by a massive body — and that these deformations register as faint, locatable forces on Earth. The effect was first observed by Professor Maurice Allais during a 1954 solar eclipse using a pendulum, and has been seen in eclipses since.
The Iasoberg™ Technology computes these regions, very precisely, for any instant between 2500 BC and 2500 AD. By correlating past cataclysmic events with the locations of iasobergs™ at those moments in time, the Technology aims to identify the patterns that precede severe weather and geophysical events — and it is that correlation, validated against the record below, that makes prediction possible.
While the validation work below focuses on hail activity in the continental United States, the Technology has shown correlation with a broader range of geophysical phenomena — including earthquakes, tornado outbreaks, landslides and earth movements, and clear air turbulence affecting aircraft. These broader correlations are the subject of ongoing study, and they point to the potential of the Technology well beyond a single class of event.
For each year, the table shows how many of the days with 75 or more large hail events were forecast by the Technology, and whether the single highest hail-event day of that year was identified.
| Year | High-hail days forecast | Hit rate | Peak day of year |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2009 | 29 of 46 | 63% | 283 events, Apr 10 ✓ identified |
| 2010 | 9 of 18 | 50% | 183 events ✓ identified |
| 2011 | 25 of 43 | 58% | 266 events, May 24 ✓ identified |
| 2012 | 10 of 24 | 42% | 303 events, Mar 2 ✓ within one day |
| 2013 | 8 of 19 | 42% | 148 events, Mar 18 ✓ identified |
| Total | 81 of 150 | 54% | 4 of 5 exact · 1 within a day |
"High-hail days" are days on which NOAA recorded 75 or more large hail events across the continental US.
The headline finding: in four of the five years studied, the Technology correctly identified the single most active hail day of the entire year in advance — and in the fifth year, it was within one day. These are the days that matter most, and they are the hardest to predict.
The full datasets behind these findings, including the NOAA event links used in the analysis, are available as Excel files: