When the station is fully operational later this spring, anyone interested in monitoring present and recent atmospheric conditions can use the interactive computer station located on Clapp's third floor. Weather buffs will also be able to access information fed from the station to an MHC weather site on the World Wide Web. Werner even intends to mount a video camera on Clapp's roof, enabling the site to include photographs of everything from campus trees swaying in the wind to snow accumulation over a period of hours or days. As a kid, Werner would often sit on his family's front porch and observe thunderstorms rolling in off Lake Michigan. He retains his youthful sense of enthusiasm and wonder about weather.
Weather is incredibly exciting.
The station will provide students with access to information on topics ranging from wind direction and strength, humidity, and barometric pressure to temperature and rainfall. Station users will compare local weather conditions with regional and national weather information available through the Internet and will experiment with weather forecasting. They will be able to put current weather in a historical context through a link with the Amherst Climate Record, a data bank of weather information for the Amherst area spanning the past 150 years, one of the longest climate records in the country. Information amassed through MHC's station will also be stored so that in the year 2099 there will be a record of one hundred years of weather activity in our area.