THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, September 13, 1994 TAG: 9409130325
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B6 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: HOT SPRINGS LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines
Because everyone talks about the weather, entrepreneur Dan Ingalls Jr. reasoned, why not outfit a computer with weather-savvy software that really gives people something to talk about.
Ingalls said weather was always important to his family, but he said he had an advantage because he was the kind of child who marveled at science and gadgets.
He ran his family's famous resort - The Homestead - for about six years until it was sold last year. He recalls an old barometer in the hotel lobby that recorded the weather's highs and lows on a long strip of paper. Around the turn of the century, that was the only way the hotel's guests could tell whether a storm might disrupt a game of golf. Ingalls says he hopes his company, Weather Dimensions Inc., takes home weather watching into the 21st century. Roanoke lawyer Clinton Morse, the first customer to pay Ingalls the $1,975 for his own electronic eye on the sky, seemed pleased. ``When I was growing up, I had a weather station at my house,'' Morse said.
Trouble was, it was a primitive device that required him to record the measurements by hand in his daily log.
So when Morse saw one of Weather Dimensions' computerized ``weather appliances'' in commercial use at Roanoke Gas Co., he had to have one for his living room.
So he contacted Ingalls, who installed the computer with vibrant color graphics that plots weather trends 24 hours a day.
``The kids love it,'' Morse said. ``It's interesting, when a storm is coming, to watch the barometric pressure dropping. It's educational and something we enjoy watching.''
Ingalls returned to The Homestead in 1987 from California's Silicon Valley, where he had pursued a computer career. The old barometer was still there. He looked for a way to combine his computer background with his interest in the weather.
``I like following it. I like storms. There are a set of people who are this way.'' So he bought some weather sensors - rain gauges, thermometers, barometers and the like - from a weather-instrument supply house in Maine, then rigged them up to display their minute-by-minute results on a computer screen. Ingalls perfected the first version of his weather station in 1991 and had it installed in The Homestead's lobby, replacing the old barometer. Then he decided to test the idea on the open market and set up a two-person company with Beth Beiderman as his marketing director. Since October, Weather Dimensions has sold about two dozen of the devices, or about $45,000 worth. A dozen or so companies around the country sell computerized weather stations, some as low as $150, others edging closer to Ingalls' high-end price.
Ingalls said his device is the only one that puts all the readings on a computer screen at the same time, usually in wavy trend lines.
That way, Ingalls said, a user can see at a glance how different weather phenomena are related. The computer shows how the air pressure and temperature fall and the westerly winds kick up just before a cloudburst. ILLUSTRATION: Dan Ingalls Jr.
by CNB