A Shippensburg University television member is trying to run a new weather website as a non-profit organization.
Zak Brisko, a student majoring in the communication/journalism program, began his passion for weather many years ago. He planned on becoming a meteorology major while attending Pennsylvania State University, and after transferring to SU this year, he became involved with SUTV.
He began working with a long–time friend by the name of Rich Foot and became a co-founder of a website, Footsforecast.org. Yahoo! ranked the site as #4 on Yahoo’s best weather websites, next to National Weather System and Weather Underground.
As Foot’s Forecast co-founder, Brisko became intrigued with keeping the public informed with current weather conditions, and decided to get involved in making his own website.
After months of trying to get ideas together and making it an official website, Brisko and his friend Ryan Krimm of Dundalk, Md., began their own version of a weather website named Hazardous Weather Prediction Center (HWPC).
With their website running smoothly, they came up with goals to seek the public’s acknowledgement.
Once they become more active in the community, their first goal is to get young, aspiring students involved. Brisko and his partner want to give them the opportunity to be involved in video editing, capturing pictures, communication skills and building their knowledge of meteorology.
Their main goal is to become a non-profit organization that provides weather information to the public and private companies.
Brisko said his plan on approaching the situation is to, “Make awareness to our existence. Get the story out there. Visit local organizations and build networking and hope that they will call us first. We want to build relationships and partnerships with different organizations.”
Brisko is willing to do whatever it takes to get the latest weather scoop. He has gone storm chasing in order to capture photos and video of a tornado.
Although HWPC is competing against well-known weather sources, like accuweather.com and weatherchannel.com, Brisko and Krimm plan on doing a few things differently.
Their ultimate goal is to get the public informed and make it aware of weather changes as easy as possible. The two plan on making each graph, map and weather term easy to read and understand.
For more information you can contact Zak Brisko at zb5907@ship.edu and HWPC website at www.wix.com/briskozak/hwpc.
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