SURVIVE THE STORM: New weather stations mean more live, local data for Table Rock Lake

It’s been almost two years since the Duck Boat tragedy on Table Rock Lake.

In the wake of that devastating event, many in Stone & Taney have banned together in an effort to improve the emergency resources around Table Rock Lake. That includes, more training and more access to live, local weather data.

A private donor gave $32,000 to provide six full functioning weather stations that will be placed at different locations all around Table Rock Lake. The funding also provided a boat, equipment and training for a water rescue initiative for the fire department.

Ted Martin is the Fire chief and emergency manager in Branson, Mo. Martin says, “the grant came forward post the ride the ducks incident and just an opportunity for a local business that came forward and said we’d like to help. We believe it can be educational for our schools, live data for our businesses and for emergency management as well”

JT Krug is also a teacher at Blue Eye school, one of the locations where a new weather station will be placed.

Krug says, “I’ve also worked at Kings River marina since I was 14 so I grew up on the water. I don’t risk it at all. The new weather stations will be a help not only on the water, but also in the classroom. Students can use their phone to kind of look at the data, we can apply scientific methods, problem solving, predicting based on graphs and weather trends.”

The six new stations will be strategically placed around Table Rock Lake. The six stations will be at schools in Blue Eye, Shell Knob, Reeds Spring, State Park/165, Chateau on the Lake, Fire station 3 in Branson.

"These proposed locations would be added to our existing units at Fire Station 1, Fire Station 2, and the Branson RecPlex. Also, the Forsyth Fire Department has one as well," says Martin.

With the six new stations, Stone and Taney counties now have ten weather stations total.

Martin says, “that will give us a view of live weather as it is happening on the west side of the lake . And so guess who gets to use that? Day to day, citizens can get on this through the Davis weather app, so its open to the public when these get installed.

“I think its awesome that a private donor would want to help out our community," says Krug.

You can access the data online now by following this link

Just type "Branson, MO" in the location box to get a map view of the weather stations. Click on the station to see the live data.