Hobbyists flesh out weather picture
Hyperlocal sites give communities more and more information
Colin Smale is an insurance adjuster by trade, but online, he’s the neighborhood weatherman in Center Valley.
Smale has been smitten with weather for so long, he’ll offer photographic evidence to tell the tale. A picture still lives in his phone of a wistful young tot dressed in orange mittens and a puffy blue coat, wide-eyed and mouth agape while surrounded by a winter wonderland.
It was the snowstorm that started it all for Smale, who is still so fascinated by weather that he mounted a personal weather station in his backyard. It records temperature, humidity, wind speed, dewpoint and more. The instruments are connected to a computer and upload live readings to a web-based dashboard, and Smale shares the information and other weather observations on his Facebook page.
“Winter is usually my main season because I love the snow,” Smale said. “When there’s a snowstorm coming, my wife would tell you I barely sleep for like two or three days. And then once it actually happens I’m just exhausted and I can barely enjoy it, but that’s just how I am.”
The seamless streaming of realtime weather conditions from Smale’s home isn’t just a one-off shot of hyperlocal weather information. A phone app broadcasting the information reveals hundreds of other locations just like it — an active community of weather enthusiasts creating a rich network of data from the Lehigh Valley and beyond.
In other words, Smale is not alone. Social media, community groups and personal weather sites are beginning to have a larger impact on meteorology, allowing hobbyists to help bring a more detailed view of weather patterns that you used to only get from your local TV meteorologist.
Some enthusiasts go beyond data and take their fascination to a different level in the pursuit of learning more about severe weather conditions.
Mitch Drabenstott of Allentown has not paired his computer with consumer-grade equipment to share observations online. But his Facebook page, Lehigh Valley Weather, has become a resource for more than 8,000 fans seeking his updates, mostly as the weather becomes more active in the spring and summer.
“When I was a kid, I just sat by the window and waited for the storms to come in,” said Drabenstott, who studied meteorology at Penn State but ultimately pursued a degree in rehabilitative and human services.
For Drabenstott, thunderstorms and tornadoes exert a sense of wonder and awe that got him hooked on weather. He’s a daredevil who has frequently visited the Central Plains — an area where prairie grasses wave calmly and the sunsets are stunningly hypnotic, at least until tornadoes come roaring through.
Some of Drabenstott’s adventures through Tornado Alley have been carefully orchestrated through Tempest Tours, a storm-chasing expedition company comprised of some of the most experienced and successful storm chasers in the country, who emphasize safety, education and responsible conduct during every tour.
Drabenstott has shared his photography and storm-chasing
information with the National Weather Service and the professional weather world at large. But one doesn’t need to chase violent, meteorological events to help the professionals tracking these storms.
Sarah Johnson, a lead forecaster and local warning coordination meteorologist for NWS in Mount Holly, New Jersey, encourages anyone with an interest in weather and public service to join the Skywarn program. It trains severe weather spotters to
keep their local communities safe by providing timely and accurate reports of severe weather to the NWS.
“Skywarn started initially in the 1970s, so it’s been over 40 years now that it’s been in existence,” Johnson said. “The goals of it are kind of twofold. Number one is the weather safety component, and just in general how to stay safe with hazardous weather. The second goal is getting ground truth information from people across the area.”
That data now comes from thousands of people across the region, allowing Johnson and her colleagues to analyze the data in real time before issuing weather alerts and warnings.
“In the last 10 years or so, Skywarn really gained popularity because we have things like social media and a lot of other methods to get the reports in from spotters,” Johnson said. That’s wonderful, because the more reports that we can get in, you know, in the case of hazardous
weather, the better.”
The professionals in Mount Holly also say they’re not surprised by the number of amateur analysts and those who have developed a passion for weather across the region.
“What’s interesting is that weather has had kind of a renaissance in in pop culture over the last couple of decades,” Johnson
said. “I think it started with popular movies like ‘Twister’ and going into storm chaser reality shows. I would say that has done a lot to really open people’s eyes to how interesting meteorology really is.”
A 17-year-old girl was killed and four teens were hurt in a rollover crash on the ramp leading to the Kutztown Bypass along southbound Route 222, according to Fleetwood police.
Police responded at 2:05 a.m. to reports of a crash in Richmond Township.
An investigation found the driver, Ibrahima Bangoura, 19, of Reading lost control of the vehicle while negotiating a curve, police said. The vehicle left the road and rolled over several times before landing in an embankment.
Bangoura and passenger Byanna Gabriel, 19, of New York City were taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest with minor injuries.
Three passengers, all 17-yearold girls, were taken to Reading Hospital, where one died from injuries sustained in the crash and two were treated for moderate or minor injuries. The minor passengers were not named by Fleetwood police.
Fleetwood police are investigating, and said they would not release more information now.
—
Cora Jean Black doesn’t question why her once-white sheers are stained a “grizzly gray” that take up to six washes to restore to their natural color.
The reason whirs by her daily in the form of big rigs and dump trucks either traveling along the sea of highways that snake through New Stanton or that are moving products to one of the many industries located in the borough.
“It’s just penetrating into the fabrics of everything,” she said of the vehicle exhaust. Black, 80, is owner of Sea-Jays Marriage Services on North Center Avenue.
Today’s reality is a far cry from the borough where Black grew up, a place she describes as family oriented with homes dotting the landscape and dirt roads that, at least for Black, were used for sled riding in the winter. But as a stopping point between Somerset and Pittsburgh, New Stanton quickly became a transportation hub, an industry that was only amplified by the 1940 opening of the Pennsylvania Turnpike.
Today, businesses such as UPS, FedEX, Westinghouse, UNFI and the Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County attract workers who largely commute in and out daily. Dirt roads made way for paved highways that are conducive to trucking companies, leading to an influx of hotels, fast-food restaurants and gas stations.
“It’s a busy town, but it’s an in-and-out town,” Black said. “They get what they want and they’re gone.”
Over the past decade, New Stanton saw one of the largest population declines in Westmoreland County, losing almost 700 people between 2010 and 2019, according to data from the American Community Survey, which is collected every year by the Census Bureau. It is sent to a sample of people across the country, resulting in population estimates for years between the decennial census.
That population loss represents a 24% drop, or a decrease from about 2,900 people in 2010 to 2,200 in 2019. Jeff McLaughlin, borough manager, noted that while a new housing plan is underway, there has been a lack of construction over the last decade. That, along with people having smaller families, are just some factors that could have led to the borough’s decline.
Still, New Stanton is not the only area facing these issues. Communities across the county have seen declines over the past several decades as the region grapples with the reality of being present-day Rust Belt towns largely filled with aging populations.
Declining populations
Over the last decade, Westmoreland County lost about 13,250 people, data show. That lowered the county’s population to 352,590 in 2019, similar to its population in the 1960s.
Local leaders are working to buck the trend with the help of a 2018 comprehensive plan aimed at building a community and environment where people would want to live.
Population declines across the region are largely traced to the collapse of the steel industry in the 1980s, said Chad Amond, president and CEO of the Westmoreland County Chamber of Commerce. In 1980, the county recorded its peak population at 392,294 residents.
When the steel and auto industries plummeted — including a Volkswagen plant in East Huntingdon and Hempfield that shuttered in 1988, leaving about 2,500 people out of work — individuals and families were forced to leave the county, region and sometimes state in large waves to find employment.
“Those that moved were those that would have been having kids
at that time,” said Jason Rigone, the county’s director of planning and development. “That then had another effect of those kids would have been having kids now.”
As birth rates declined in the county, an issue seen across the country, populations continued to steadily drop. By 1990, Westmoreland had 370,321 residents — marking the county’s first population decline of that century, census data show. By 2000, the county had a population of 369,993, which dropped again in 2010 to 365,169 residents.
Today, Westmoreland residents are generally older. By 2019, there were 78,061 people older than 65 living in the county. That was up from 68,037 in 2010.
As things stand, populations are continually declining as natural deaths outpace births. Census data released in April 2019 showed Westmoreland had the highest number of natural deaths (11,210) in Pennsylvania from 2010-18.
“Our mortality rate is outpacing our birth rate,” Rigone said. “It’s a sign of the times, people are changing. They just don’t have as many kids as they once did, and that’s OK, but it has an effect on our population.”
A drop in population in recent years also has come as jobs left the county.
Sony Corp., which in 1992 opened at the former Volkswagen plant, shuttered in 2009 as part of a global downsizing, leaving 560 people out of work. In 2010, Westinghouse Electric in Monroeville moved to Cranberry. In its heyday, the headquarters consisting of two office complexes employed about 3,000 people.
Chris Briem, a regional economist at the University of Pittsburgh, noted many workers at the complex likely lived across the line in Westmoreland County.
Philips Sleep and Respiratory
Care in 2018 moved 1,250 regional employees to new Bakery Square offices in Pittsburgh’s East End. The company did keep its manufacturing facilities in Murrysville and Upper Burrell along with a service center in Mount Pleasant Township.
“That’s a big hit,” Briem said of those jobs moving to Allegheny County.
With several factors supporting population declines in the county, those numbers could only continue to decrease over the next few decades.
The Center for Rural Pennsylvania seven years ago predicted Westmoreland’s population could drop to 344,230 by 2040.
“You drop a stone in the water, and it creates ripples,” Rigone said. “We’re kind of seeing the second ripple of that industry closure back in the ‘80s.”
Impacts of shrinking populations
Across the county, cities and towns once bustling with small businesses supported by workers from local industries now sit empty, ghosts of what used to be.
In Jeannette, up the road from New Stanton, as many as 700 buildings are vacant, according to fire Chief Bill Frye. “Glass City,” which was founded on the glass manufacturing industry, has declined since the sprawling Jeannette Glass facility shuttered 1983, cutting 1,500 jobs.
Over the last decade, Jeannette lost 624 residents, data show, dropping from a population of 9,840 in 2010 to 9,216 in 2019, or a 6% decline. In 1900, the city had about 5,900 residents. That ballooned to more than 16,500 in 1960, census figures show.
“When you have 17,000 people living here and now you’re down to 9,200, you’re going to have empty buildings,” Mayor Curtis
Antoniak said.
City leaders are hopeful the Elliott Group’s new $60 million testing facility on part of the former Jeannette Glass space will help revitalize the city and restore some of its former glory.
“I’m 61 years old, so I was there when Jeannette was booming,” Antoniak said. “But we’re not the only town, it’s everywhere across western Pennsylvania. People just have to drive around and see the results of it.”
Across the county, similar scenes are visible in places such as Greensburg, which lost 747 people, or almost 5% of the population, and Monessen, a former steel city, which lost 519 people in the past decade, or about 6% of its population.
Most counties in the region saw population decreases in the decade. That includes Fayette (which lost 7,505 people), Somerset (3,858), Indiana (3,713) and Armstrong (3,622). Allegheny County, which is largely stabilizing as it attracts younger generations and several technology-based industries, saw its population decrease by 1,322 people.
Still, western Pennsylvania is not alone in its struggles to maintain populations. Nationally, populations have gradually slowed every year since 2015, the census report shows.
Like Westmoreland, those trends are largely highlighted by aging populations, according to a January report from the Brookings Institution, which states that between 2010 and 2020 the number of people older than 55 grew by 27%. According to the report, the largest driver in aging populations is the baby boom generation, whose eldest passed 65 in the last decade.
Areas of growth
While those numbers seemingly paint a grim picture for the
future of Westmoreland, pockets of growth can be seen across the county.
Located along the Westmoreland-Allegheny line and almost a straight shot to downtown Pittsburgh, North Huntingdon has become a modest hub of growth, bucking trends seen in the rest of the county as single-family homes are continually built.
Over the last decade, the township grew by 120 people, bringing its population to 30,430 in 2019, data show. Those numbers seemingly piggyback off commercial growth and an average of about 104 homes built each year over the last 20 years, according to Ryan Fonzi, the township’s director of planning and zoning.
Fonzi attributed the growth to “the proximity to Pittsburgh and the benefit of being in Westmoreland County and not having the higher taxes of Allegheny County.”
Next door, Manor also showed growth over the last decade with 173 new residents. The borough also had two housing developments — Woods of Brandywine and Crimson Pointe — built in the past 10 years.
While the municipality actually saw a slight decrease in populations over the past decade, Murrysville is another area that benefited from its location along the county line, according to Chief Administrator James Morrison.
He said the municipality saw growth starting in the early 2000s after a highway was rebuilt. Since then, Murrysville has seen both commercial and residential developments.
“I think it’s a good, sound residential community and that’s the reason why people are attracted here,” Morrison said. “The school district is solid and that’s why they’re attracted here. It’s the quality of life here in the community.”
Upper Burrell saw one of the largest gains in the county, growing by 330 people, or 16%. That brought the township’s population from 2,056 in 2010 to 2,386 in 2019, data show. Township Secretary Melissa Cortileso attributes the growth to a housing plan built in the early 2000s and to low taxes.
“For small municipalities, population growth is often really driven by specific new housing developments,” Briem said. “Of course, there is a bigger question of what is driving those investments, but, really, if there was notable growth in a specific small area, it is net new housing.”
Quality of life
County leaders have been working to capitalize on that growth in an attempt to stabilize population declines.
The 2018 plan, Reimagine Our Westmoreland, lays out several factors to make the county attractive for businesses as well as younger people.
The 10-year plan is the second adopted by the county, Rigone said.
A 2005 plan focused on challenges in terms of infrastructure and economic development.
The new version, Rigone said, “really [focuses] on the problem statement of population decline. The strategies associated with addressing that really were about creating a community and an environment people would want to stay or would want to move to.”
That can be achieved by leveraging local talent, focusing on small businesses and connecting with technology, according to the plan.
Other aspects include creating development-ready sites, cultivating arts and entertainment, honing in on the county’s rural aspects, developing recreation sites and enhancing trail systems.
Making the county an attractive place to live, Briem said, will likely draw people to the area, even if their job is elsewhere. The area’s roads make it fairly simple to commute for work to one of the seven surrounding counties — Allegheny, Armstrong, Butler, Fayette, Indiana, Somerset and Washington.
“We’re not as isolated as we might have been a century ago, where jobs and the workers were so tied together,” Briem said.
Still, aspects of the plan include bolstering manufacturing jobs, as well as producing skilled labor through trade schools.
The former Sony plant is now home to tenants such as DNP IMS America, Cenveo, Westmoreland County Community College, Siemens and ARGO. Rigone noted county officials are hopeful the site soon will be home to more workers than were previously employed there.
“That takes time to build. That doesn’t happen overnight,” Rigone said. “Population numbers don’t change quickly, so we’re really building a foundation for success that we’re hoping we’ll actually see progress on toward the end of that plan’s term.”
Turning populations around
Small efforts by municipalities could help in the overall goal of making Westmoreland County attractive to both younger generations as well as to people already living in the area.
New Stanton leaders are hopeful initiatives such as putting in sidewalks and a new housing development, which will add 167 single-family homes over 10 years, will help bring people to the borough.
“We are trying to make it more livable, more walkable,” McLaughlin said. “Certainly, our park, we’re proud of that. It goes toward quality of life, so we try to maintain that.”
Rigone noted efforts by county partners, both nonprofits and those in the private sector, are helping to identify areas that need support in terms of population growth, meaning the county has “some very strong momentum moving forward.”
And while populations are smaller than they were a decade ago, Briem stressed that does not mean the county cannot still be successful.
“Certain communities are smaller than they were at their peak, or in the past, but nonetheless can be very successful places, where families want to live or work or where new jobs are being created,” Briem said.
Looking forward, Rigone added, “We’re excited for the future, but this is a process that we have to be patient, we have to be persistent, we have to obviously look for partnerships to ensure we are successful.”
JACKSON, Mississippi — Leo Carney worries that bigger crowds and maskless diners could endanger workers at the seafood restaurant where he manages the kitchen in Biloxi, Mississippi.
Maribel Cornejo, who earns $9.85 an hour as a McDonald’s cook in Houston, can’t afford to get sick and frets co-workers will become more lax about wearing masks, even though the fast-food company requires them.
As more jurisdictions join Mississippi, Texas and other states in lifting mask mandates and easing restrictions on businesses, many essential workers — including bartenders, restaurant servers and retail workers — are relieved by changes that might help the economy but also concerned they could make them less safe amid a pandemic that health experts warn is far from over.
Many business owners on the Mississippi Gulf Coast were glad Gov. Tate Reeves decided to eliminate mask requirements, limits on seating in restaurants and most other binding restrictions. “But the workers themselves... especially ones that have preexisting conditions, they’re scared right now,” Carney said.
“This just puts us back in a situation where we’re on the front lines, under the gun again,” said Carney, who sees Black Mississippians facing the greatest risks from the decision that took effect Wednesday. COVID-19 has disproportionately affected
Black and Latino people in the United States, and many Gulf Coast restaurants have a significant number of Black employees.
Public health experts tracking the trajectory of more contagious virus variants have warned that lifting restrictions too soon could lead to another lethal wave of infections. Although vaccination drives are accelerating as drug manufacturers ramp up production, many essential workers are not yet eligible for COVID-19 vaccines in Mississippi and other states.
Alabama’s state health officer Friday advised residents to keep following standard infection-prevention recommendations even though the governor is letting the state’s mask mandate expire next month.
“There is nothing magical about the date of April 9. We don’t want the public to think that’s the day we all stop taking precautions,” State Health Officer Scott Harris said.
The governors of Iowa, Montana, North Dakota also have ended mask requirements or plan to suspend them soon. The governor of South Carolina on Friday lifted an executive order requiring face coverings in government office buildings and restaurants, leaving it up to state administrators and restaurant operators to develop their own guidelines.
Governors in several other states, including Louisiana and Michigan, eased the operating limits for bars, restaurants and other businesses in recent days.
The National Retail Federation, the largest retail trade association in the U.S., issued a statement Wednesday encouraging shoppers to wear masks. Some retail chains, including Target and supermarket operator Albertsons, plan to continue requiring them for both customers
and workers in states that no longer make them mandatory.
Texas Retailers Association President and CEO George Kelemen said he thinks many members will continue to require workers — but not necessarily customers — to wear masks and other protective gear.
“Retailers know their customers best,” he said.
Cornejo, 43, said the end of
Texas’ mask mandate this week alarms her because several of her co-workers already were lax about keeping their faces covered.
“There are just different attitudes,” said Cornejo, whose 19-year-old son began working as a cashier at the same restaurant to help pay the family’s bills.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,
Dr. Rochelle Walensky, encouraged Americans to “do the right thing” by continuing to abide by recommendations for routine mask use and social distancing — even if their states lift restrictions.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, said individuals who wear masks still risk infection
from unmasked shoppers and diners. He called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to lift COVID-19 restrictions starting Wednesday “entirely too soon and entirely too carefree.”
The U.S. has had nearly 29 million infections and more than 524,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.