Ever wonder what the cloud cover will be during a football game at Bright House Networks Stadium or what time the sun is set to rise as you plan an early-morning jog around campus?
The weather curious at UCF are in luck thanks to WeatherSTEM, a tool that tracks current and predicted weather and pushes out updates through the web, social media and a WeatherSTEM app.
WeatherSTEM has been at UCF since 2015, but its camera component was recently upgraded. Now, WeatherSTEM followers can watch the sunrise, sunset and daily weather conditions from a camera positioned high atop the John C. Hitt Library with a view of UCF’s iconic Reflecting Pond and Millican Hall.
A weather station installed at UCF’s Emergency Operations Center measures factors such as wind speed and rainfall every minute, pumping that information to the WeatherSTEM channels.
The camera and weather station were donated by WeatherSTEM CEO Edward Mansouri.
“Depending on the time of the year, weather in Central Florida can be great or become severe. WeatherSTEM allows the UCF community to be aware of the local weather so they can plan accordingly,” said Jeff Morgan, UCF’s director of Security and Emergency Management. “We see this as another safety tool for our community”
WeatherSTEM is a tool used across the country to share important weather information and build environmental literacy.
At UCF and other universities with WeatherSTEM, the system also includes a history of the campus’ weather on past football gamedays. Users can scroll back to 1979 to see what the weather was like during each game of the Knights’ first season, or look through other years to see the weather conditions of Knights home and away games.
To see WeatherSTEM in action, visit https://orange.weatherstem.com/ucf or follow along on Twitter [1].