Weather Station Field Trip

Today our Homeschool 4H group took a field trip to our local weather station. We are really fortunate that the weather station for 40 surrounding counties is located just a few miles from our house.

This equipment reads wind speed.

More equipment here that measures rain fall, snow fall, barometric pressure.

The high tech rain gauge.

We watched a tornado video.

Here the computer shows us the 40 counties this one station is responsible for.

32 in Tennessee and 8 counties in Virginia.

The screens showing the doppler radar.

The green is rain, the red is severe storms.

Another computer that is monitored.

Explaining how a tornado or thunderstorm warning is issued.

I was really surprised to learn it was the only station around for 40 counties, the next one is over in the Nashville area, one in Kentucky, one in Al. This station here employs 38 people full time-and their is someone there 365 days a year.

The clouds outside were really neat today too. Dark clouds with areas of clearing over the mountains.