Mashpee School Ahead Of The Curve With Lightning Detection System

MASHPEE (CBS) – Severe weather season is right around the corner, and the National Weather Service has declared this week severe weather preparedness week in New England.

When it comes to severe weather safety, one local high school is truly ahead of the curve.

This year as Mashpee High students take to the fields they will have a state of the art lightning detection system watching over them.

The WeatherBug lightning system was installed in July 2014.  The alarm already went off in October when a storm system moved through.

Students could hear the loud siren in class, but everyone was already inside. Now that warmer weather has arrived, this will be the first full storm season putting the alarm to the test.

"It measures in-cloud and cloud-to-ground lightning. And it's the most advanced system commercially available, really," says Jacob Wycoff, WeatherBug Meteorologist.

School administrators agreed on setting a 10-mile radius or more to set the siren off.

"The old way was you had to hear the thunder, right.  And then you did a count in your head," said Tom Hoppensteadt, Mashpee High School Science Teacher.

That meant second guessing how close the storm was. Lightning can travel miles ahead of an approaching storm too.

Once your hear thunder the lightning has already occurred since light travels faster than sound. The detector picks up the lightning before the thunder sounds, leaving no debate on when to get indoors - maybe saving your life.

Teachers at the high school use the WeatherBug network in their curriculum.  Students have an immersive experience collecting temperature, cloud type, sky condition, and all the data the weather stations collects.

"The learning that's brought to our school system by having WeatherBug here, has really been enhanced by the fact that they're using data that's collected at their high school," said Hoppensteadt. "If the weather is looking bad, we've got a little better picture of how it's going to go, than most places do.  And if it does get real severe we can get them in before they're in danger."

A new generation of learning also allows students to carry their weather information with them on their electronic device. Then they can use that information to have warning before an outdoor event is postponed.

"Especially for me being a three-sport athlete going outside every day. Whether it's hot, cold, raining, snowing." said Christina Ball, a senior at Mashpee High School. "If you're out there on the field and you hear the siren then you know, ok I should go inside."

"When parents drop their kids off from school, we rely on teachers and administrators to keep our kids safe an educate them. And that's what this equipment will allow them to do," Jacob added.