There is one thing that has been documented every day since 1949 at Pierce College—the weather.
The weather station at Pierce has been reporting since 1949, two years after the college was established, for the National Weather Service, and there is a complete data set—maximum and minimum temperatures and rainfall—of 24-hour measurements dating back to 1949, according to Observation Program Leader Joe Sirard.
The station at Pierce is a cooperative weather station, and across the National Weather Service there is a cooperative weather network of thousands of volunteer weather observers who come from all walks of life, explained Sirard.
“Part of my duties is to maintain these cooperative weather stations, such as Pierce College,” Sirard said. “So other educational institutions in my district include not only Pierce College, but also UCLA, and also SLO Cal Poly. So we have three educational institutions in my district as part of a cooperative weather observer network.”
The Western Weather Group, in conjunction with the National Weather Service, is in charge of the day-to-day operations of the weather station, said Sirard.
“The data is updated every day at 4 p.m., and then I gather the data from all these different sites around my district, including Pierce, and then I submit the data to the National Centers for Environmental Information,” Sirard said.
The weather station is seeking additional funding for future projects, according to grant writer and physics and planetary sciences professor Travis Orloff.
“I have made attempts for funding using instruments that can predict data of weather phenomena for Southern California,” Orloff said, also mentioning tools such as pollution sensors and temperature sensors.
Orloff wants students to be able to use the weather station for their classes, such as research projects or lab activities in environmental sciences, oceanography or earth science courses.
Professor of Anthropology and Geographical Sciences Tracy Hurst said classroom education on weather data collection is enhanced by having a weather station on campus because it provides ground-based instruments that students can observe firsthand.
The data collected has made Pierce’s weather station an important component for news stations across the county.
“One of the claims to fame for that site is that the all-time high temperature of record for Los Angeles County was on Sept. 6, 2020—when the site reached 120 degrees for a maximum daily temperature,” Sirard said. “It’s the first and only official high of 120 degrees for Los Angeles County.”
