Paulson arranged the purchasing of the hardware for the weather station, called the Experimentor, from a company called Fascinating Electronics.

The hardware set up on the roof of the Science Center includes an anemometer, a thermometer, a wind vane, a barometer, a rain gauge and a hydrometer.

Several Science Center staff members helped set up and calibrate the instruments on the roof, as well as connect them to a computer in the basement via an interface box and cables, Paschke says.

Designed to be fully automatic, the project should require a minimal amount of maintenance, says Paschke, who was also involved in creating the hypertext map of Harvard for the FAS Web site.

The final step involving the network connection that makes the Web page accessible over the Internet was not made until this year, Steen says, because of the large number of other network-related tasks that required attention on campus.

In addition to being displayed on the Web page, the collected weather data may be used to study local weather patterns and trends.

But Steen says scientific research on Harvard weather patterns may require the use of better and more sophisticated instruments. He says he does not think anyone is currently using the data for research.

"At the moment, we just put it up as a convenience to the Harvard community," Paschke says.

Although the Web page became accessible just last week, a few students already say they plan to utilize it.

"[I'll] probably check it every day," Baratunde R. Thurston '99 says. "When I check my e-mail in the morning, I'll check the weather too."

Jeffrey I. Zaref '96 says he found the outside resources linked to the Web page to be useful as well.

"[I] liked the links...where you can see weather maps of the entire nation, like you see on TV where they have fronts and clouds and stuff like that," he says.