VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Tomorrow afternoon begins the 50th annual Virginia Beach Neptune Festival and with Helene bringing in a threat of severe weather, the City of Virginia Beach is keeping a close eye on the boardwalk.
"Any type of large storm like that it's always going to be a rain event and a wind event for us," Andrew Booden with Virginia Beach Emergency Management, said.
Booden said he'll be down at the Oceanfront on Friday to monitor conditions and ensure everyone stays safe from possible severe weather while enjoying the festival.
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He will not be alone and will be taking a new mobile weather monitoring system the city recently purchased.
"If you look at him he's got all these different parts, he's able to read wind direction, how fast the winds coming in," Booden said.
Booden is describing a Perry Weather system that has been named Periwinkle, by students in the city.
The device was purchased after a tornado hit Virginia Beach a few miles from the Something In The Water music festival back in 2023.
Now when it comes to large outdoor events and festivals the city will utilize the device to tell what weather conditions are in a specific part of the city.
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It was most recently used during the city's 4th of July firework display to detect lightning, pushing the show up by 10 minutes.
"Then this weekend, tomorrow I'll be setting up Perry down at the Neptune Festival down at the boardwalk," Booden said. "That's going to be a big one because we're supposed to have fowl weather tomorrow between 3 pm and 5 pm I just got the forecast from Perry.
Kit Chope, with the Neptune Festival, said the tents are up, the sand sculptures are solid, and this weekend is on rain or shine.
"If we have some kind of severe weather and I call that certainly lightening, damaging or severe winds, tornadic activity, we have a boardwalk announcement system all along the boardwalk where we can immediately make announcements for folks to evacuate the boardwalk," Chope said.
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Chope said if there is any severe weather that will impact the festival there will be updates on the event's social media.
