Get ready for the weather: Humboldt celebrates weather station

HUMBOLDT — About two weeks after the city of Humboldt installed a weather radar station atop a water tower north of the city, it detected an EF-1 tornado touching down near Eureka. Early on the morning of April 16, the tornado traveled 7.5 miles.
“As soon as the radar was turned on, we immediately saw the benefits of the system,” said Tara Good.
Goode and Bryce Kintai gave brief examples of how the radar will benefit the region during a ceremony Wednesday morning. Crews completed installation of the 5,000-pound weather radar in late March.
In January, Humboldt City Council members gave the go-ahead to Louisville, Kentucky-based Climavision Operating, LLC to install a domed station on an 80-foot-tall tower. The circular fiberglass structure can be accessed from inside the water tower.
City Administrator Cole Herder explained that representatives from Climavision contacted him in November 2023 and expressed interest in installing a weather system. Before installation, the closest weather station was in Wichita. The system provides real-time radar information to local municipalities for forecasting, public warning and emergency preparedness activities.
Held noted that Humboldt was chosen as a weather radar for larger cities like Chanute or Iola because it is further away from the Prairie Queen wind farm north of Moran. “Both Chanute and Iola are located close to wind farms, which causes noise on the radar,” he explained.
Kansas plans to install three private radars free of charge. Humboldt is the first of three locations, with the other two located near Hill City and Ellsworth.
“This means that once construction is completed, the entire state will be covered by weather radar,” Good said. She expects the remaining projects to be completed in about 12 months.
Climavision owns, operates and services all radars and will enter into radar-as-a-service contracts with government agencies and other weather-sensitive industries. Essentially, the company pays the cost of the radar up front and then monetizes access to the data. “This allows us to pay for the technology and make the data free for our community partners,” Goode said. “Providing radar as a service removes the costly infrastructure burden of owning, maintaining and operating your own system and allows more organizations to gain additional insight into weather monitoring.”