The City of Santa Barbara has basic weather recording equipment; temperature, humidity, wind and rain gauge at the Carrillo and Stanwood fire stations. This information is sent in real time 24/7 to the weather page on the city’s website giving us accurate information on the current conditions downtown, not at the airport.
Problem is, it hasn’t worked properly in four years! Repeated calls to the fire department administration office about this likely leased equipment only giving the correct time and date has led to this.
For all of us who live work and play downtown please fix this.
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There are real-time updates from the Stanwood fire station weather on the County rainfall pages. Go to https://rain.cosbpw.net and click on the period of rain you want to see, and you can zoom in on the map that shows up to see the amounts at all the weather stations in the county, including the one at Stanwood Fire Station. I check it all the time when it’s raining, it is continually updated, so the equipment must be working just fine. I like that you can see how much it’s rained in an hour, or 3 or 6 or 12, all the way up to a week–at any particular station. Really useful map.
The city has lots of realtime rain gauges “Potholes” all over town and they’ve been doing a diligent job to let them expand all over town. The SB County board of supervisors has even been helping out. They recently increased their pay during a time of deficit, to further help reduce funding to allocate for the creation of more rain gauges around the county. Gotta love it, tax dollars at work!
Cancel the leases and throw it in the trash. It hasn’t worked for four years obviously we don’t need it.
But.. the equipment is working.
The usual answer from the city staff these days has been “We don’t have the budget. Pay more taxes. But keep paying our salaries and benefits.”
The usual complaint from the cons who are poorly socialized.
Please say something factual and honest.
Jeez, there are so many other, better ways to get weather reports and so many other, better ways for this currently a C- level City bureaucracy to spend the tax dollars they’re getting than weather forecasting. Let it go die and put the money to better use elsewhere, like education.