WeatherFest offers rare peek at Rancho Bernardo office

The National Weather Service is welcoming the public to a free family-oriented expo on Saturday that includes a tour of its Rancho Bernardo office.

The inaugural WeatherFest and All-Hazards Preparedness Expo will be 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, May 9 at the NWS office, 11440 W. Bernardo Court in Rancho Bernardo. Attendees are advised to park along the street. Admission is free and there will be many giveaways. Food and beverages will be available for purchase.

While weather-related topics will be among those featured, there will also be many other agencies present to provide information about a wide assortment of emergency topics. Among those scheduled to attend are NASA, CalFire, U.S. Border Patrol, San Diego Fire-Rescue, San Diego Gas & Electric, American Red Cross, U.S. Navy, San Diego County Office of Emergency Services, Community Emergency Response Team and California Geological Survey. Special guests include meteorologists Megan Parry from ABC10, Sabrina Fein from CW6 and Dave Scott from KUSI.

Activities — many with a kid-friendly focus — will include viewing emergency vehicles and equipment, a weather balloon, games for kids, tours of the NWS Office every 15 minutes, distribution of free educational materials and preparedness guides plus opportunities to win prizes, such as a free NOAA Weather Radio given away every hour.

Owlie Skywarn, the National Weather Service’s mascot, will also be promoting the volunteer weather spotters network and other educational activities, said Alex Tardy, a manager and warning coordinating meteorologist at the NWS RB office.

“It’s very rare for these type of events to have the national mascot,” Tardy said.

He said the office, which was moved from near the airport to Rancho Bernardo in 1996, last held an open house in the late ‘90s. Staff gives free tours to school groups and others, but have not held any other public events. If there is a large turnout, he said an expo of this nature might be offered every other year.

“This (expo) is something we’ve been talking about for a long time,” Tardy said. While he has attended several in nearby Southern California counties, Tardy said nothing of this scale has been held as a regional event in San Diego County. The closest are safety events organized by specific communities.

“This is a true safety preparation expo,” he said. Among topics to be covered are wildfire, flood and tsunami.

The National Weather Service’s Rancho Bernardo office covers four counties, spanning a geographic area with 10.5 million people from Barstow in San Bernardino County to Mexico, from Palm Springs to San Clemente Island and out into the ocean. When people tour the office, Tardy said they will see how computer models and other software and hardware help the office’s 25 employees put together general forecasts plus weather and red flag warnings.

“All the information is in our internal system, not like that you can see of weather models on the Internet,” Tardy said. “With radar and satellite they’ll see how we overlay them to make weather forecasts and warnings.”

There is an option of signing up for Saturday’s tours in advance by sending an email to Jimmy.Taeger@noaa.gov, but Tardy said they will also accommodate walk-ups.