NORWICH – While winter months are off to an unusually mild start, the city emergency management office hasn’t ignored the pending seasonal storms and is now prepared to alert residents of inclement weather with a new weather station atop of the Norwich Police Station.

For the last two weeks, the previous weather station has had trouble functioning, according to Emergency Management Officer A. Jones. While daytime hours weren’t troublesome, mechanical problems with the station’s solar panels caused it to malfunction when the sun went down.

“It was only working during daylight hours,” said Jones, who replaced the worn equipment on Sunday. “Our options were to refurbish or replace it.” Weighing the options, it was best to have it replaced, he explained. “If we sent it in for repair, it was going to be down for at least a month.”

This is the second time in the last year that the weather station has become unreliable, said Jones. Last fall, the station had similar problems but was easily repaired, temporarily sparing the emergency management office the hassle of replacing it. Now finishing its fifth year of use, replacing it was unavoidable, Jones said.