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Eyes on the Skies
Carnegie
Science Center and the WTAE-TV meteorological staff
team up to deliver a winning forecast on the one subject
that still brings all Pittsburghers together—the
weather.
By Barbara Klein
In a nation divided into red and blue states, the weather
could be the last frontier of polite dinner conversation.
Even with the gathering storm of global warming and the
social and economic wake left behind by Hurricane Katrina,
weather is still the one thing we have in common.
“
We’re immersed in it,” says Carnegie Science
Center’s Director of Visitor Experience John Radzilowicz. “And
it’s constantly changing.”
Ever-changing also describes the Science Center’s
weather-related exhibits, programs, classes, and camps.
They’re in a constant state of transformation as
scientists, meteorologists, and astronomers learn more
about the causes and effects of weather. The most visible
example of the Science Center’s commitment to keeping
pace with the weather sits nearly 90 feet atop the museum’s
Rangos Omnimax Theater. There, the giant cone dubbed E-Motion
shines a light on the forecast for all within a 10-mile
radius to see—depending on the weather, of course.
A red light means warmer temperatures ahead. Blue is a
sign of colder air on the way. Green indicates no change.
And yellow equals severe weather. If the light is flashing,
that’s the signal precipitation is on the way.
E-Motion
is plugged in, so to speak, to WTAE-TV. From the Channel
4 studio in Wilkinsburg, the Weather Watch 4 team
relays the evening’s forecast to a Science Center
computer, and within moments the news is reflected in the
cone’s beacon.
But the big E is just one component of a long-standing
partnership between the Science Center and the television
station. This multi-front relationship also involves bringing
the weather to the people —specifically the area’s
school kids.
Lightning Strikes Local Schools
Introduced more than three decades ago by Pittsburgh’s
legendary weatherman Joe DeNardo, the WTAE school visits
are now the domain of Weather Watch meteorologist Stephen
Cropper and Science Center staff educator Mindy Gawlas.
Nearly every Wednesday during the school year, the duo
takes their weather report on the road to elementary and
middle school auditoriums and gymnasiums throughout the
Channel 4 viewing area. Each visit attracts hundreds of
students who stay tuned as Cropper talks the talk and Gawlas
brings the shock.
The “chain of pain,” as
Gawlas likes to call it, is a hands-on demonstration of
lightning. The “wow” moment,
she says, comes as the static electricity travels down
the line of kids giving each member of the chain gang a
gentle jolt. Also prompting a gasp from the crowd is the
tornado cannon. Using a canister of compressed air, this
device illustrates how an ordinary pencil can be turned
into a dangerous projectile capable of puncturing an inch-thick
piece of wood.
“
I think it’s awesome,” Cropper says. “When
the kids can see, feel, hear, and touch things, it takes
our school visits to the next level. It helps imprint on
their brains that science is cool.”
A Cool Weather Front
And so is being a television weather person. But it’s
not all bright lights and school visits. Back at Channel
4, Cropper and his colleagues are called upon to give the
forecast while standing in front of a blank “blue” screen.
To actually see what the viewer is watching at home, he
has to check the off-screen studio monitor to make sure
he’s not inadvertently standing in front of Pennsylvania.
Channel 4 meteorologist Stephen Cropper delivers more than
the forecast to local schools.
PHOTO: Lisa Kyle
Meanwhile at the Science Center, visitors are invited
to check out the mini-WTAE studio set up on the fourth
floor
to see if they have what it takes to deliver a flawless
forecast. After selecting the weather of their choice—tornado,
flooding, heat wave, or snow—the wannabe forecasters
wait for the pre-tapped cue from Channel 4 anchors Sally
Wiggin and Mike Clark and then follow the tele-prompter
in an effort to do their best Stephen Cropper imitation.
The general consensus? He makes it look easy. But there’s
nothing easy about predicting the weather. “Weather
patterns anywhere in the world result from a combination
of ocean and atmospheric currents driven by the energy
of the Sun and the rotation of the Earth,” the Science
Center’s Radzilowicz says.
Future Warming Trend
In other words, global changes and conditions influence
whether Pittsburgh residents should carry their umbrellas
on any given day (the odds are they should). To help
bring this concept into sharper focus, the Science Center
has a number of exhibits dealing with the “Forces
of Nature.” For example, there’s the Hurricane
Table, the Twister Chamber, the Aeolian
Landscape, and
the Wave Maker, as well as computer stations where visitors
can explore the seasons in the comfort of the great indoors.
In
addition, the Science Center’s Buhl Digital
Dome programs are designed to shed some light on the
astronomical
aspects of weather, like Sun dogs and halos, and climate
trends.
“
We make a distinction between weather and climate,” Radzilowicz
explains. “The weather refers to day-to-day, hour-to-hour
conditions, like precipitation and temperature, while climate
refers to changes over decades, centuries and even millennia.”
Which
brings us to the question of global warming. According
to Radzilowicz, there is no question:
“
It is absolutely a real phenomenon,” he says. “There
is overwhelming evidence that it is happening—and
it is a big, serious issue.”
Anecdotally, there are
plenty of stories to back up his assertion. “People
who have lived in Pittsburgh for 40 or 50 years,” Cropper
says, “tell me how
much more snow we used to get.”
And for the past eight
years, Radzilowicz has been making his own observations
from his office window. “When
I first started working here,” he says, “I
would see an incredible amount of ice on the rivers each
winter. Now there’s almost none. That’s a pretty
dramatic shift.”
Here Comes The
Sun—Maybe
The one element, however, that has remained constant about
the weather is our need to know about it. How else can
you explain the 24-hour Weather Channel? Yet despite
all our high-tech weapons of prognostication—Doppler
radar, computer simulations and satellite images—our
ability to foresee the five-day forecast remains dubious
at best.
“The weather is a very complicated phenomenon,” Radzilowicz
says. “It’s
amazing we can predict anything at all.”
Cropper agrees, and he should
know.
“
Geographically,” he explains, “the Pittsburgh area lends
itself to some wild weather. Science helps, but there still is an art
to this craft.”
Although Pittsburghers can generally count on an
annual average high temperature of 82.5 degrees Fahrenheit in July
and a typical yearly low
of 20.8 degrees
Fahrenheit during January, the rest is simply a well-educated guess.
The Great Lakes and the Atlantic Ocean are just two of
the contributing factors making Pittsburgh a tough town
to forecast. And because of
its location between
the Great Lakes and the Allegheny Mountains, the region is often mired
in clouds. In fact, Pittsburgh experiences about 200 overcast days
a year.
That, says psychologist Alexander Levy, takes an emotional
toll. “There
is a direct relationship between atmospheric pressure and mood and
behavior,” he
explains. Low pressure systems not only portend of cloudy, rainy
days; they can also be predictors of increased inappropriate behavior
and
even depression.
And the lack of sunlight during the winter months, acknowledges the
American Psychiatric Association, can lead to a specific malady known
as Seasonal Affective
Disorder.
What’s a Pittsburgher to do? Perhaps take comfort
in the weather’s
universality. As Levy says, “It’s one of the few common
denominators we all share.”
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