Aurora Introduces Live Streaming ‘WeatherBug’ Station
With the wind chill at Aurora Airport in Sugar Grove at minus 16 degrees Tuesday, maybe it’s not a bad idea to keep track of the extreme conditions for cold and snow before you go out the door.
A new, state-of-the-art WeatherBug Station is doing exactly that — monitoring the skies in the heart of Aurora and giving area residents better data for oncoming severe weather.
The live-streaming weather station provides real-time weather data to help make better weather-related safety decisions, and to deliver vital, timely weather information to residents both online at www.aurora-il.org and through the WeatherBug app.
The weather station camera is mounted on the roof of the Elmslie Building at 1 S. Broadway and provides residents with a clear, 24-hour-a-day look at weather in downtown Aurora and it provides administrators at Aurora’s Emergency Management Agency with a 360-degree view of approaching weather systems.
“The addition of the WeatherBug Station is a great asset to the weather programs and tools used by the Aurora Emergency Management Agency to monitor the City of Aurora for approaching severe weather,” said Joseph Jones, Aurora’s emergency management coordinator.
This real-time data is gathered every 2 seconds, and thus streams truly live information. The weather station measures conditions including temperature, wind speed and direction, precipitation, humidity and other data. A high-tech total lightning sensor detects and then triggers alerts to lightning that enters an unsafe range in neighborhoods around Aurora.
The station also is able to provide Aurora weather data for meteorological teams at WGN News, WeatherBug’s local media partner. Through WeatherBug’s Homeland Security Partnership Program, Aurora’s weather data is made available to the National Weather Service in the event of an emergency.
Access Aurora’s new WeatherBug Station on Aurora’s website, www.aurora-il.org, or for Aurora weather straight to your phone or tablet, download the WeatherBug app, available for Android and iOS.
