Oakton installs WeatherBug weather station
Oakton Community College recently installed a WeatherBug weather station, camera and web-based educational software tools allowing students, meteorological teams across the country and online users to access weather data from the college's Des Plaines campus.
The weather station was made possible through a $20,500 grant from the Oakton Educational Foundation, a not-for-profit charitable organization that supports compelling college initiatives not met by public funds.
"WeatherBug benefits our students because they can use real-time data in lab sessions from our station and from those across the country. They can see live images of weather events," says Oakton Chair of Physical Science Jennifer Cumpston.
Students enrolled in Introduction to Weather and Climate use the weather station to learn the difference between weather and climate. Each week, students access observations from Oakton's weather station and compare them to surrounding areas, plotting weather data on graphs comparing weather information from other locations, including nearby O'Hare International Airport.
"To be able to show students what is going on outside visually and then compare with actual weather data observations from that day and past days is invaluable," lecturer Rick DiMaio says.
The WeatherBug system helps college administrators make decisions about closing campus for weather-related events such as winter storms and flooding. And the system is being used by the Athletics Department to provide real-time updates to help manage spring outdoor sporting events.
"It is going to be very helpful in making decisions about the weather as it relates to the safety of our student-athletes," says Oakton Director of Athletics Bruce Oates.
Oates says the system provides heat index data, lightning data and storm warnings in the summer, and winter storm information that helps inform decisions about travel and in determining if an athletics contest needs to be postponed or canceled.
"Student safety is our primary concern," Oates adds. "The WeatherBug system can be set up to send us text alerts regarding dangerous weather as it approaches, so we are setting the coaches up to get these alerts."