MOBILE, Ala. (WKRG) — A new weather station should be online today for the students and community around Cottage Hill Christian Academy. The new hardware is meant for the classroom and beyond. Lugging this piece of equipment around, with a school logo on top, it almost looks like a trophy, but the real prize is what it can do.

“Not only will our students be able to partake in this opportunity but all of Mobile and we’ll be able to notify national weather service and local media outlets as well,” said Head of School Chris Brazell. It’s a weather monitoring station by a Florida-based company called WeatherSTEM. This morning they started by trying to scout a good spot for it on the roof.

“Nothing near it that would block wind values, get good sun readings, no shadows on it for UV and solar radiation sensors, nothing that would obstruct rainfall,” said Timothy Dotson with WeatherSTEM. It’s a good way to collect weather observation data and they hope to use that information to improve learning in the classroom.

“Hopefully the kids that are aspiring to be meteorologists, that are aspiring to learn about atmospheric science, things of that nature hopefully this gives them an avenue to pursue that,” said parent Chad Anderson. It’s designed to give students real-time weather data to study and be an additional resource for local metrologists and the community that could allow people to track weather’s impact on the school activities. WeatherSTEM has installed stations at schools around the Southeast including Auburn and LSU, this will be the first one in our part of Alabama.