Smith County Fire Marshal’s Office installs weather system station

SMITH COUNTY — The Smith County Fire Marshal’s Office has installed a Weather System Station at the Emergency Operations Center to provide emergency management officials and members of the public a chance to access real-time, detailed weather data. WeatherSTEM offers a public-facing view that allows access to a multitude of information for every resident, without signing up. “WeatherSTEM’s accessibility makes it a useful tool for the whole community and will enhance the abilities of emergency services,” Smith County Fire Marshal Chad Hogue said. “Realtime weather information, such as wind direction and speed, is vital during fire and hazardous materials incident responses.”

WeatherSTEM offers a 15-day forecast and can generate hourly forecasts; it has a live-feed camera that updates every few seconds and produces daily historical time lapses. It also gives data for monthly totals of rain, heat guidance forecasts, Almanac history and information on the sun, moon and planets.

Click here to view the website. Smith County Emergency Management Coordinator Brandon Moore said, “We are making this available to every city and both Smith County Emergency Service Districts for internal notifications.”

For administrators, WeatherSTEM will allow emergency management officials to create groups, such as law enforcement, fire departments, Emergency Medical Services and Emergency Services Districts, to send out alerts and create weather events, such as freeze warnings. The station will also benefit the Smith County 911 Dispatch during times of inclement weather, as well as the Office of Emergency Management.

“It will allow me to monitor and track weather, plus provide us with historical data for planning and prevention purposes,” Moore said. The Fire Marshal’s Office will be able to look at historical lightning data to use in fire investigations.

There are also plans to incorporate additional weather patterns, such as fire behavior for the fire departments.

WeatherSTEM is based out of Florida, and although there are several stations all over the nation, there are only a few in Texas.