LYNDONVILLE, Vt. (WCAX) – The Caledonia County Fair in Lyndonville is a lot of fun, and now it will also play an important role in helping to track the weather, and potentially save lives.
The fair kicked off on Wednesday. It’s located in the village of Lyndonville, which has about 1,200 residents; that’s located in the town of Lyndon, which has about 5,500 residents. It is home to Vermont State University, Lyndon and Lyndon Institute, and it’s really proud of its five historic covered bridges. But the county fair is the big draw in August, and now it’s going to play a big role in keeping this community safer.
Tucked away from the tasty fair food and the five days of rides, a permanent fixture is going up at Lyndonville’s Caledonia County Fair, which will help fine-tune WCAX’s First Alert Forecasts.
Sam Koehler is overseeing the project.
“So, we’re building these weather towers that will monitor and report data of any sort of storm system, any kind of weather that will be coming through,” Koehler said.
The University of Vermont and Vermont State University teamed up to install a new weather monitoring station at the fairgrounds. It’s expected to cost around $60,000, paid for by the Leahy Institute.
It will measure temperatures, wind, snow depth, lightning, rain, soil saturation and more.
It’s part of the schools’ new statewide weather monitoring network, called Mesonet. This will likely be the first of 20 or so weather towers to go up.
The National Weather Service requested that the area be examined as a potential spot because radar is often blocked by the mountains there.
“Any rain falling at a lower level, it’s really hard for them to detect. They also are not exactly sure how much is hitting the ground, so it’s very easy for precipitation to be missed,” Koheler said.
The precipitation and soil saturation gauges are particularly important in a community devastated by back-to-back flooding disasters.
Recovery continues in places like Red Village Road, the area still rising from the flood mud.
Reporter Darren Perron: Could this save lives?
Sam Koehler: It absolutely could.
The information can be used by our forecasters, but also emergency management, the Transportation Agency and rescue crews to rapidly respond, close down roads faster, and get people out.
The fair was quick to jump at the chance to help, too, by donating the land for the project.
“We’ve had a couple bad years up here,” Caledonia County Fair President Chris Vance said. “Last year, we donated 100% of our proceeds for our opening night to local flood relief, and so this just was another thing we just felt was that important.”
Not only will our First Alert meteorologists have access to this real-time data, but you will too.
They hope to break ground on this first weather station this coming fall.
