ESD provides weather data to inform citizens, protect workers

Lake Travis Fire Rescue, also known as Emergency Services District No. 6, installed a professional-grade weather system at its headquarters at 15304 Pheasant Lane in Lakeway, LTFR Assistant Chief John Durham said.

Durham said the system was installed a few months ago and that being located in a lake community requires constant monitoring of the weather.

"Keeping current on the latest weather can be fairly critical for us," he said. "With all of the recreation on the lake and the threat of wildland fires because of the drought, we have to know what the weather is doing."

Durham said the weather reports the department receives from dispatch stations may be completely different from weather the crews are currently experiencing, so purchasing a professional-grade system was a high priority.

The system measures both indoor and outdoor humidity, barometric pressure, total rainfall and rainfall rate, wind speed and direction, and the intensity and proximity of lightning strikes, Durham said.

The data is gathered and graphed on a computer at the station. It is then archived and uploaded to Weather Underground, a commercial weather service that provides real-time weather information available at its website, www.wunderground.com. Durham said this allows users to access historical data for any day of the week or hour of the day.

Durham said that one piece of information not uploaded is lightning detection, which prompted him to set up a webcam for individuals to monitor that information through the LTFR website.

"The LED readout on the weather system gives us a good indication of the electrical intensity from storms up to 200 miles away," Durham said. "The website allows people to see that green LED gauge. [Generally] the more LED lights on the gauge, the closer the activity is."

Durham said that if a storm is extremely strong, the readouts may indicate the storm is closer than it actually is, but the information is important nonetheless.

"It is important because of the lake activity," Durham said. "We also have a lot of construction with the increased development, and these high elevations can be prone to lighting strikes. This allows people to look at the data and maybe rethink going out on the lake, playing a round of golf or doing construction work. This may just make the public a little more cognizant of the electrical weather in the area."

Durham said the weather station benefits also carry over to other areas such as monitoring lightning while crews work under tall trees and investigating fires.

"During wildland fires, [the system] can be a good investigative tool," he said. "We can go back through the data and see if any weather factors played into where the fire started and why it progressed. It is just one of the many tools in our toolbox that helps us do our job."