The approximately 30-foot-tall sculpture was installed in 1988 in a corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon. During its daily two-minute sequence, the machine displays one of three metal symbols as a prediction of the weather for the following 24-hour period. Weather predictions are made based on information obtained from the National Weather Service and the Department of Environmental Quality.
About Weather Machine in brief
Weather Machine is a lumino kinetic bronze sculpture and columnar machine that serves as a weather beacon, displaying a weather prediction each day at noon. The approximately 30-foot-tall sculpture was installed in 1988 in a corner of Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland, Oregon, United States. During its daily two-minute sequence, which includes a trumpet fanfare, mist, and flashing lights, the machine displays one of three metal symbols as a prediction of the weather for the following 24-hour period. The sculpture includes two bronze wind scoops and displays the temperature via colored lights along its stem. Weather predictions are made based on information obtained from the National Weather Service and the Department of Environmental Quality. Considered a tourist attraction, Weather Machine has been called ‘bizarre’, ‘unique’, and ‘wacky’ and has been compared to a giant scepter.
It took five years to plan and build and cost USD 60,000, and was dedicated on August 24, 1988, by Today weatherman Willard Scott. The machine is reported to be between 33 feet and 33 feet tall, with two bronze scoops that turn in opposite directions. It also indicates the machine’s temperature via an internal gauge, which is measured by vertical colored lights above the sculpture’s stem. The air quality index is also displayed by a light system below the stainless steel globe, which reflects amber, green, and red lights to mark every ten degrees. Referring to an additional light system that indicates that good air quality is good, a green light reflects good airquality, and a red light reflects amber reflects poor air quality, or white reflects white. In 1998, one writer for Oregonian warned: ‘You don’t want to breathe so much so when the light is on the machine’
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This page is based on the article Weather Machine published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 30, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
