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Weather museum as waterfront draw?
Advocates envision high-tech ‘focal point’ as tourist magnet
Imagine an architectural masterpiece on the downtown waterfront that includes an Imax attraction where people become armchair storm-chasers.
If advocates can find the money to build a high-tech weather museum, they’re convinced that it would help draw visitors from across the continent.
Picture tourists from Tallahassee bundling up in borrowed parkas to experience a simulated winter storm, Buffalo-style, on a muggy August afternoon. Or visitors from a desert region peering through a massive window that overlooks Lake Erie, listening to a scientist vividly explain the link between ferocious storms and bodies of water.
If you ask members of an informal study group that held a brainstorming session Thursday, the National Weather Discovery Center of Buffalo could help make the region a major tourism destination.
“We’re not talking small potatoes here. This would be the focal point of the waterfront,” said Tom Niziol, meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Buffalo.
“The scale and scope we’re talking about would be unparalleled, certainly in North America,” said Don Paul, WIVB-TV meteorologist.
As more than a dozen weather experts, community leaders and elected officials huddled in a City Hall conference room, there was an abundance of ideas and enthusiasm.
Now all the weather museum advocates need is the money.
So they’ve mapped out a game plan. Volunteer committees will be formed to tackle some early challenges. One of the first things needed is a feasibility study, and even this will cost money. Advocates will reach out to various levels of government, foundations and leaders in the private sector, hoping they’ll see the value of investing in the project.
One component of the feasibility study would involve estimating the economic impact such an attraction would have on the local economy.
Forging partnerships with other entities is another priority. For example, a group that has long been pushing for a planetarium in Niagara County has expressed an interest in working with advocates of a weather museum. Perhaps a facility in downtown Buffalo could accommodate both attractions, creatively connecting the dots between weather and astronomy.
Other potential partners include the National Weather Service, the University at Buffalo’s earthquake engineering center and the Great Lakes Center at Buffalo State College.
At least eight local governments have come out in support of building a weather museum, including the City of Buffalo, Erie County, Cheektowaga and the City of Tonawanda.
UPDATE 3-15-2008
Just about everyone who has lived in Buffalo has felt the stinging bite of a blizzard or braced against bands of burying Lake Erie-fed snow.
"Whether we like it or not, we have a reputation for snow," said Maryann Stein, who is among those working to get the idea off the ground. "So why not capitalize on it? Get something back from our weather?"
But why should they have all the fun?
A group of weather enthusiasts is making plans to open an interactive "Weather Experience Center" to showcase not only Buffalo's changeable weather, but the hurricanes, tornadoes and other phenomena that keep people glued to the Weather Channel. Planners envision a museum-quality waterfront building with exhibits that put tourists in the eye of the storm.
On the drawing board are plans for an IMAX virtual reality theater that will let visitors chase tornadoes. Also, a blizzard room with enough snow and wind to give warm-weather visitors a taste of a winter storm — after bundling into hats, coats and gloves at the door.
"It's got to be fun. Weather can be a lot of fun," said Tom Niziol, the meteorologist in charge of the local National Weather Service office and an adviser on the project.
Other exhibits would explain climate change and provide real-time weather data from places in the throes of severe weather.
The glass-walled building would allow visitors to watch lake-effect snow roll in off the water, or look for water spouts amid the whitecaps. Experts on staff would explain the weather as it is happening.
A facilities study is underway that should give the steering committee an idea of what the project will cost, said Craig Turner, chairman of the executive committee. Early estimates are in the $150 million range. Funding will be sought from public, private and corporate sources.
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