One able-bodied person who can climb on a school roof and follow direction holds the balance of a popular Greater Victoria data-gathering weather station.
Andrew Weaver, the founder of the school-based stations dotting Vancouver Island, isn’t worried about finding funding, or software upgrades – physical maintenance is the one remaining hurdle to maintaining the legacy.
“I have received overwhelming support from the communities,” Weaver told Black Press Media. He’s recently been inundated with emails from students, teachers, cyclists, gardeners, runners, boaters and organizations, even Butchart Gardens, looking to keep the “unique for its time” system going.
Weaver started the program in 2002 as a prof at the University of Victoria, with systems recording weather data atop schools across the Greater Victoria School District (SD61) by 2005. He and Ed Weibe, working part time on the project, kept things running smoothly even as Weaver was elected MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head in 2013, until his reelection in 2017 when Weaver relinquished his chair and associated grant funding – the program hung perilously in limbo.
At the last minute, weeks before it was to be shut down, UVic came through with funding to keep Weibe’s position permanent, Weaver said.
“Ed was able to keep things going from 2017 to 2020 when I was in the leg.”
In 2020, access to the system disappeared into pandemic measures. In 2021, Weaver returned to UVic, where Weibe’s responsibilities had both grown and changed.
Now neither man is in a position to be on a school roof to maintain the decades-old infrastructure.
To ensure smooth operation, each of the 166 weather stations should be visited once a year. On any given day there is typically time to visit and maintain three or four stations. Over the course of the year, and estimating three stations can be maintained each day, the project needs 55.3 days of on-site maintenance – equivalent to about a 0.25 FTE, Weaver said.
The amount of support out there indicates he could source the funding and people power required for a much-needed website overhaul and maintenance. Many of the stations are also nearing the end of their shelf life. Stations are perched on schools in districts across Vancouver Island including Sooke, Saanich, Gulf Islands, Nanaimo/Ladysmith, Qualicum, Pacific Rim, Comox Valley, Campbell River, Cowichan Valley, Vancouver Island West, and Vancouver Island North.
“There’s been a lot of support, so I’m less concerned it’s going to collapse, now I'm trying to herd all these cats,” Weaver said.
Plus there’s the one position, which – as rooftop work – does include an element of risk. He’s banking on UVic, a major founding supporter, to come through with options.
“The one piece that’s holding it back is I need somebody, that is on a salary, that can basically go around schools and on the roof to fix stuff.”
Learn more at victoriaweather.ca.
