ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Boating season in Rochester has arrived but deciding whether to take the boat out on Lake Ontario could be a little trickier this season. Equipment near the lake that transmits weather data has been offline for weeks. Why is that?
The weather station next to the Charlotte Pier hasn’t shared any data with the public for months. The last reading was from Jan. 10. The Coast Guard and recreational boaters on Lake Ontario use data collected at the station for things like air temperature, wind, and pressure. When a few viewers noticed it was down, they reached out to News10NBC for answers.
A viewer, Mike, says: “It lets us know if the wind is strong enough to make the waves uncomfortable or dangerous … Will the station be coming online in the near future or is it being abandoned?”
The station is owned and maintained by the National Weather Service. News10NBC contacted the meteorologist in charge of the Buffalo office, who said they are working to get it fixed as soon as possible.
He said the equipment was vandalized over the winter months. Its parts are different and rarer than a typical weather station, like the one at the Rochester airport, for example.
The National Weather Service said that, when the replacement parts came in, they needed to be reprogrammed. Crews are working with the manufacturer of the parts to iron out data encoding issues.
It will be back but it’s not clear when. There is another weather station about a mile west of the one at the Charlotte pier, that’s maintained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration – the federal parent agency of the National Weather Service.
That station is functional and takes temperature readings several times an hour. You can view data from that station here.
If you have a good question you’d like answered, send an email to goodquestion@whec.com.
AI assisted with the formatting of this story. Click here to see how WHEC News10NBC uses AI
Good Question: Why is the weather station at the Charlotte Pier not working? WHEC.com.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Good Question: Why is the weather station at the Charlotte Pier not working? )
Also on site :