For emergency management officials in the Northeast who in time of an airborne biological or chemical attack must know which way the wind blows: click here.
The Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) at Cornell has developed a web page that provides easy access to the most recent weather observations, including wind direction and speed, during the preceding 24 hours. The data comes from approximately 200 National Weather Service stations across the region. The web site is www.nrcc.cornell.edu/hrly/rwoem.html.
"We felt that a single page offering quick access to regionwide weather observations -- particularly winds -- would facilitate emergency operations in the event of an incident involving an airborne toxin," said Arthur T. DeGaetano, Cornell associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences and director of the NRCC.
New observations are added to the web site within minutes of a reading from a weather sensor at any one of the Northeast stations. The site features a map of the region (from Maine to Maryland and from West Virginia to Delaware), plus Virginia and eastern Ohio. Users can simply click on the red dot that represents the weather station of interest and read the chart.
The 24-hour site was developed in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. To assist rescue and recovery workers at "ground zero" in New York City, the National Inter-Agency Fire Center asked the Western Regional Climate Center in Reno, Nev. -- which has wide experience in monitoring forest fires via weather satellites -- also to conduct climate monitoring of New York City. The NRCC, which has experience in assembling this kind of information, worked quickly to develop the web site under DeGaetano and Keith Eggleston, senior climatologist at the center.
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