Is it stormy or sunny? What’s the speed of that monster wind barreling down State Street?
At miSci in Schenectady, visitors can see live weather data in the museum’s front lobby.
Temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, humidity, barometric pressure and the heat index. Just about everything you want to know about Mother Nature in the neighborhood appears on a 19-inch WeatherBug computer screen mounted on the reception desk.
“People always check it. I think that everyone is interested in weather,” museum president Mac Sudduth says. “And if there’s a weather emergency, it’s on here.”
On www.schenectadymuseum.org, the website for the Museum of Innovation and Science, anyone with access to the Internet can see the data, too.
The museum can also flash the temperature on its new LED sign near the curb on Nott Terrace.
WeatherBug landed at miSci three months ago, when National Grid installed weather-gathering equipment on top of the building.
“It’s hooked up on the roof to the Internet. It comes back from the Internet to here,” Sudduth says, pointing to the computer screen.
WeatherBug, which is owned by Earth Networks and based in Maryland, maintains a network of more than 8,000 weather stations across the country.
Sites around the region
In the Capital Region, National Grid has sponsored and installed more than a dozen WeatherBugs at schools, fire stations and government offices in the past few years.
The idea is to keep communities safer by providing real-time alerts and forecasts to local officials, first responders and others who require real-time local weather.
“It’s a service to the community, a collection point for weather data. National Grid also uses the weather data,” says Sudduth.
From now through June 5, the WeatherBug is the perfect companion to “Earth Exposed: Discover Our Planet’s Hidden Secrets,” an interactive exhibit from San Francisco’s Exploratorium.
Visitors can watch how air moves sand and creates different landscapes, like the Pine Bush in Albany, a sandy region sculpted by wind thousands of years ago.
“Once upon a time, we had sandstorms here,” says Sudduth.
If you poke your hand into a large black saucer filled with a foggy mist, you can feel what it’s like to touch a cloud.
In other parts of the exhibit, there’s a small swirling tornado and a mini geyser enclosed in glass.
“The geyser goes off every 17 minutes,” Sudduth says.
Data for TV weather
MiSci’s weather station also provides data for Channel WNYT-13 broadcasts.
In an email, chief meterologist Bob Kovachick says that he uses information from miSci and nine other places with WeatherBugs, including Pinewood Elementary School in Schenectady, the town of Colonie, the village of Fort Plain’s department of public works, Perth Volunteer Fire Company and Hamilton-Fulton-Montgomery BOCES in Johnstown.
Five schools have video cameras with their WeatherBugs, including St. Madeleine Sophie School in Guilderland and Schuylerville Elementary School, and those images are also used on Channel 13, Kovachick says.
In Ballston Spa, Gordon Creek Elementary School has a WeatherBug station with a camera, with info at www.bscsd.org.
Two years ago, when it was installed, the WeatherBug mascot paid a visit to Gordon Creek, delighting the students.
In the Ballston Spa School District, the weather data is used by students, faculty, administrators and parents, says Stuart Williams, the district’s community relations coordinator.
“The golf coach uses the information to help with decisions about the practices and matches,” Williams says.
At Ballston Spa High School, the athletic department uses a Spark feature, an alert about lightning strikes in the area, to decide on whether to hold or cancel practices and games.
Parents and teachers
“Parents indicate that they check the system to decide what students should wear and for checking the weather’s effect on road conditions,” he says.
“Classroom teachers use the information from the WeatherBug in their morning meetings, including the use of the videocam to show live footage of what’s happening with the weather from the rooftop.”
At all four Ballston Spa elementary schools, students use the weather data in their morning announcements, and in fifth-grade classes, the information is part of the science curriculum.
At the high school, students in Earth science and chemistry analyze WeatherBug data.
“They love it,” Williams says.
Reach Gazette reporter Karen Bjornland at 395-3197, [email protected] or on Twitter @bjorngazette.
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Categories: Life and Arts
