Budding scientists and people with a keen interest in climate change will be able to see first hand what is happening with the weather, thanks to a project involving Niwa and the Central Stories Museum and Art Gallery in Alexandra.
The Niwa weather station recently installed in Pioneer Park will soon be linked to computers in the museum, providing real-time data from Alexandra and the rest of the country.
"Because Alexandra is an archetypal four-seasons town and has extremes of climate, we feel it is the ideal place to tell the stories of climate for locals and visitors, school children and young and old," Central Stories director Brian Patrick said.
The project will allow people to see data coming straight off the climate station, and download data from a year earlier.
The computer will allow people to construct various scenarios, view the results, and take away the results in printed form.
The display aims to cover all aspects of climate from global issues to day-to-day data measurement and describe what it all means in an understandable way.
Dr Richard McKenzie, of Niwa, said information from the weather station would include wind speed, air temperature and humidity.
A programme was being written which would allow solar readings, and that would interest people who had solar panels.
"For instance, the beautiful day we had yesterday [November 20] produced 1kW of energy per sq m of solar panel."
Mr Patrick said the display would be "a real hit" with schools as it fit with several parts of the curriculum.
"We will attract school groups from all over New Zealand to the site as there is no other place where this story is told, let alone in an attractive and engaging way," he said.
The outdoor equipment has been installed in Pioneer Park and work has now started on linking the weather station to computers inside the building.
Niwa has budgeted $20,000 for the project, which will be the official weather station for the town and the surrounding area.
Central Stories has raised a further $20,000 to cover the costs of graphics interpreting the various aspects of climate change, and for the housing of artefacts related to the measurement of climate change.
The whole operation for public interaction should be running by the middle of next year, although the recorded information is already available online.
