Make the Call—Tool Makes Weather-Related Decisions Easy
As a leader in your organization, it’s important for you to be confident about the decisions you make. Yet, making the call on weather-related closings, delays and early dismissals can be downright difficult.
There are many variables in play and the safety of students, staff, and community members is at stake. Plus, unexpected changes in the regular school day can quickly become controversial if the reasoning is not obvious to the public.
Now there’s finally a solution available to help you evaluate the situation you’re facing and make an informed decision.
BOCES, schools and municipalities statewide can now access a first-in-the-nation weather forecasting tool available in partnership with the University at Albany’s Center for Excellence in Weather & Climate Analytics.
You’ll get access to localized weather data and forecasting predictions, updated in real-time.
How it Works
- The dashboard relies on a combination of numerical weather prediction modeling and machine learning techniques to produce hour-by-hour forecasts for a number of different variables, including snowfall, freezing rain, sleet, heavy rain, wind gusts, heat index and wind chill. Forecasts are divided into hourly intervals and color-coded based on the likelihood of a prediction being met at that time.
- The dashboard provides current conditions in the region through the New York State Mesonet, a statewide network of 126 standard weather stations. Each Mesonet station tracks approximately 20 weather variables and collects still camera photos to visualize conditions. There’s at least one station in all 62 counties, about 19 miles apart.
- Dashboards are locally customized for partnering BOCES/school regions, with training and onboarding offered to district and school superintendents before implementation.
What To Expect
- Login to the dashboard from your preferred device for significant insight on local weather conditions.
- Determine the most appropriate action for your school district based on a common weather resource that’s straightforward and tailored for your geographic area.
- Rest easy knowing you made the best decision based on a forecasting tool with advanced insight into potential impactful weather conditions.
“Making weather-related decisions that will impact the safety of our students and staff depends on having quality, timely ‘hype-free’ information. Piloting the weather forecasting tool in Guilderland means that we have had the opportunity to shape it into something that can help keep everyone be safer in times of challenging weather conditions.”
– Dr. Marie Wiles, Guilderland Central School District Superintendent
Interested in learning more? Contact us today for a demo.