Moorpark College received a new addition to its campus recently, and it’s already seen some unusually stormy times.
Michael Walegur, geography and geographic information systems professor at Moorpark College, installed a weather station on campus last month in the hopes that it would enhance the classroom experience and provide vital information during dire situations.
“[Research] is integral to the goals of our institution because it is critical that we train and prepare Moorpark students for competitive academic programs at four-year institutions and for professional research careers,” Walegur said. “The data [from the weather station] will also be useful for emergency campus planning associated with brush fires and extreme wind, heat and precipitation events.”
Walegur began campaigning for the necessary equipment about a year ago and was rewarded on Jan. 26, when the live web link to the station was set up.
The weather station, made by Davis Instruments, provides real-time data to a web link through a wireless signal that transmits to a receiver located in Walegur’s office.
Aside from the typical temperature, rain and wind reports expected of weather stations, Moorpark’s device is also able to measure sunrise, sunset and moon phases while compensating for daylight savings time. The solar-powered weather station uses a lithium battery as a backup and creates on-screen graphing of the conditions directly connected to the website.
A second remote station is currently in development, but Walegur hopes that students in courses like geography, environmental science and meteorology will be able to utilize the new addition to its full potential. The entire department is looking forward to the new addition according to Omar Torres, department chair of the chemistry and earth sciences department.
“The Department of Chemistry and Earth Sciences is most excited about the potential that our new weather stations provide for our campus community,” said Torres in a statement. “Students in our Physical Geography and Meteorology classes as well as related disciplines such as Environmental Science will have the opportunity to experience the kinesthetic application of hands-on weather data acquisition and management which should enhance their overall learning experience. The department is grateful to the administration for supporting us in this endeavor to better serve our students.”
The weather station is located at the Charles Temple Observatory and current weather conditions can be found at www.moorparkcollege.edu/weather.
