PTEM Labs

Product

PTEM Labs supplies a structural intelligence layer that complements intensity and environmental hazard models. We surface reproducible structural signals that add context to storm behavior without replacing existing hazard stacks.

What the structural engine provides

PTEM summarizes internal storm organization into a compact, versioned snapshot at regular 6‑hour intervals. These snapshots make structural state observable and auditable, so downstream risk decisions can account for organization-driven risk dynamics in addition to intensity.

How PPI (Priming Index) is used

The Priming Index (PPI) is a high-level signal derived from PTEM’s structural metrics. PPI highlights periods where a storm’s internal organization indicates elevated responsiveness to environmental forcing — effectively flagging windows where downstream hazard or loss models should pay closer attention.

  • Provides an orthogonal signal to intensity and environment
  • Computed on a uniform, frozen 6‑hour grid for auditability
  • Versioned model snapshots for reproducible backtests
  • Delivered as both scalar channels and structural snapshots

Validation & governance

We validate PTEM against a frozen 10‑season, 6‑hour aligned dataset to ensure stable baselines, reproducible scoring, and transparent change control. Enterprise customers receive versioned snapshots, validation reports, and audit-ready artifacts.

SDK integration (example)

The PTEM SDK is intentionally lightweight and focused on reproducible integration into modeling workflows. Below is a minimal Python example showing how to fetch a structural snapshot and PPI channel. (This is an integration example only — no internal formulas are exposed.)

from ptem import PTEMClient

# Initialize from environment (API key + org)
client = PTEMClient.from_env()

# Fetch a structural snapshot and the PPI channel for a storm
snapshot = client.snapshots.get(storm_id="2024181N09320", dtg="2024-06-29T00:00:00Z")
ppi_value = client.channels.get(storm_id="2024181N09320", channel="ppi", dtg="2024-06-29T00:00:00Z")

print(snapshot.summary)
print("PPI:", ppi_value)

Reading the structural snapshot

The structural snapshot is a compact visual summary of how organized a storm looks in PTEM space. It doesn’t show intensity directly – it shows how “ready” the storm’s structure is to support big changes.

  • Inner core: the small solid disk in the middle. When it’s small and faint, the storm is structurally “quiet.” When it’s larger and darker, the core is more focused and organized.
  • Middle ring: the dashed ring around the core. Tighter, more continuous dashes suggest more coherent banding and organization in the storm’s structure.
  • Outer ring: the soft pulsing halo. A brighter, more active halo indicates periods where the storm may be more receptive to rapid changes – the kind of windows PTEM’s Priming Index is designed to highlight.
  • Orbiting node: a small dot off to the side. It hints at asymmetry and banding – reminders that storms can be structured and “primed” even when not perfectly circular.

In practice, analysts don’t read the rings manually – they consume numeric metrics and probabilities through the SDK and API. The snapshot is there to give humans an at-a-glance feel for whether the storm looks structurally quiet or structurally primed.