earth science

Weather beacon

Weather beacon is a earth science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Weather beacon rather than just read about it. In short: A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember.

Key takeaways

Weather beacon belongs to earth science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Weather beacon to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Weather beacon from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember. The beacon is usually on the roof of a tall building in a central business district, but some are attached to towers. The beacons are most commonly owned by financial services companies and television stations and are part of advertising and public relations programs. They provide a very basic forecast for the general public and not as an aid to navigation. In addition to displaying weather forecasts, some weather beacons have been used to signal victory or defeat for a professional sports home team.

History

Precursors In 1898 on the orders of U.S. President William McKinley, coastal warning display towers were installed along the coast of the United States. In 1936, the Weather Girl sculptures were installed in City Hall Square in Copenhagen. In 1938, Douglas Leigh designed a Coca-Cola billboard with a weather forecast display at Columbus Circle in New York City.

Weather beacons The first attempt to create a weather beacon as a form of advertising was from Douglas Leigh, who, in 1941, arranged a lighting scheme for the Empire State Building to display a weather forecast code with a decoder to be packaged with Coca-Cola bottles. The plan was never implemented because of the attack on Pearl Harbor later that year. Leigh resurrected his idea in Minneapolis in October 1949 with the Northwestern National Bank Weatherball. In Australia, MLC installed weather beacons atop its buildings in North Sydney and Melbourne 1957 and 1958. Weather beacons were most popular during the 1950s and 1960s.

Similar devices Coastal warning display tower Harbinger at The Met Condos, Toronto, is a colored beacon on the roof that indicates the current wind speed. Hibernia Bank Building (New Orleans) Paris balloon Signal station Time ball

List of weather beacons

Australia New South Wales St George Co-operative Building Society, Hurstville (16 March 1973 − ????) MLC Building, North Sydney (31 December 1957 − ????) Westpac Place, Sydney Queensland Hitachi Building (MLC Building), 239 George Street, Brisbane (1976 – 6pm, 26 November 2007) Old MLC Building, 243 Edward Street, Brisbane (28 July 1958 – ????; non-functioning) South Australia MLC Building (now Beacon House), Victoria Square, Adelaide (June 1958 – December 1979) Victoria Carlton & United Brewery, Abbotsford (May 1958 − ????) IOOF Building (formerly MLC), 303 Collins Street, Melbourne (1973 – ????; non-functioning) 888 Collins Street, Melbourne (2016 − present) Western Australia MLC Building (now Kingsgate Apartments), 171 St Georges Terrace, Perth (October 1957 – ????; dismantled)

Austria Wetterleuchtturm, Ringturm, Vienna

Belgium Who's afraid of Red, Green and Blue: Weather Tower, Dexia Tower, Brussels (22 October 2007 – 22 December 2007)

Canada Capilano Brewery, 1550 Burrard Street, Vancouver, British Columbia (1953 − ????) White Rose weather beacon, 570 Portage Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba (25 June 1964 − ????) Kitchener City Hall, Kitchener, Ontario Canada Life Building, Toronto, Ontario (9 August 1951 – present) Canada Life, 505 Boulevard René-Lévesque Ouest, Montreal, Quebec (12 April 1956 – January 1976) The Plains Hotel, Regina, Saskatchewan (???? − 2011)

Denmark vejrpigen (Weather Girl), Richshuset, The City Hall Square, Copenhagen (1936 − present) Tomorrow's Weather, Aller Media, Havneholmen, Copenhagen (2009 − present)

Finland Näsinneula tower, Tampere

Germany Wettersäule Aachen

Japan Tempozan Ferris Wheel, Osaka Tsūtenkaku, Osaka

Norway Tomorrow's Weather, Valle Hovin, Oslo

Sweden Tomorrow's Weather, Stockholm Central Station, Stockholm

Turkey Beyazıt Tower, Istanbul

United Kingdom Light Towers Project (Coventry Point, Mercia House, Hillman House), Coventry Castlemilk Lighting Project, Castlemilk, Glasgow Empire Square Tower, Southwark, London

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Weather beacon

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Weather beacon claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In earth science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Weather beacon before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Weather beacon ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Weather beacon

In research: Weather beacon appears in earth science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Weather beacon in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Weather beacon is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Beacons, Weather forecasting, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Weather beacon outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Weather beacon in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Weather beacon means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Weather beacon out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Weather beacon in simple terms?

A weather beacon is a beacon that indicates the local weather forecast in a code of colored or flashing lights. Often, a short poem or jingle accompanies the code to make it easier to remember.

Why does Weather beacon matter?

Because it connects several earth science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Weather beacon?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Weather beacon.