OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Hundreds of volunteers hit the streets this weekend to map hot spots around Oklahoma City. However, with the hiccups in the weather, they faced challenges they weren’t expecting.

The triple digit heat we thought we were going to see this weekend was primed for a perfect day of heat mapping, instead maneuvers had to be made in order to get the data they needed.

“It was very challenging,” Sarah Terry-Cobo, associate planner for the OKC Office of Sustainability said. “We stayed in close contact with National Weather Service Norman all day, as well as our consultant campus strategies.”

Heat mapping volunteers had to add a task to their agenda over the weekend of dodging the rain in order to get the data the city needs to map the hot spots around the metro.

“Those who did have a little few sprinkles, basically what they had to do was stop the car as soon as they could safely and then pull the equipment inside the vehicle, so that it couldn’t get wet or so that it wouldn’t get wet,” Cobo said.

For those that ran into the rain, all they could do was wait it out.

“They assured me that as long as we’re able to capture some data, at least 30 minutes of data in the beginning of the route, then it’s usable,” Cobo said.

So, that’s what they did; instead of trying to get a full hour in during the route, they focused on a solid 30 minutes of good data they could use.

“For example, there was rain around noon time and it cooled off downtown when I was walking around taking thermal images, so they removed those from the data to make sure that it doesn’t skew the model,” Cobo said.

With the data they were able to collect, they feel confident that it will be enough once the results come in.

“So the consultant Kappa Strategies assures us that we have enough usable data for the model to be able to account for the urban heat island effect.” Cobo said. “So we’re confident, even though we didn’t get Friday’s temperatures, those triple digit heat indices, that it’s still usable information that will help us make decisions for the future and to be able to have that literal heat map around Oklahoma City.”

The preliminary data will be in, in the next 6-8 weeks with the full analysis in about 3-4 months. Sarah says her team will then present the data to city council in efforts to cool off the hottest areas around the city.