VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The 50th annual Virginia Beach Neptune Festival begins tomorrow afternoon and with Helene bringing severe weather, the City of Virginia Beach is keeping a close eye on the boardwalk.

“Any type of major storm like this is always going to be a rain event and a wind event for us,” said Andrew Booden with Virginia Beach Emergency Management.

Booden said he will be at the Oceanfront on Friday to monitor conditions and ensure everyone is protected from possible severe weather while enjoying the festival.

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He won’t be alone, taking with him a new mobile weather monitoring system the city recently purchased.

John Hood

“If you look at it, it has all these different parts, it can read the wind direction, how fast the wind is coming in,” Booden said.

Booden describes a Perry weather system that town students named Periwinkle.

John Hood

The device was purchased after a tornado struck Virginia Beach in 2023, a few miles from the Something In The Water music festival.

Now, when it comes to large outdoor events and festivals, the city uses the device to determine what weather conditions are in a particular part of the city.

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It was most recently used during the city’s Fourth of July fireworks display to detect lightning, adding 10 minutes to the show.

“Then this weekend and tomorrow I’ll be setting up Perry at the Neptune Festival down on the boardwalk,” Booden said. “It’s going to be a big topic because there’s supposed to be poultry weather tomorrow between 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. I just got the weather forecast from Perry.”

John Hood

Kit Chope of Neptune Festival said the tents are up, the sand sculptures are solid and it will be rain or shine this weekend.

“When severe weather occurs, and I certainly call it clearings, damaging or strong winds, tornadic winds, we have a boardwalk announcement system along the entire boardwalk that allows us to immediately tell people to evacuate the boardwalk,” Chope said.

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Chope said there will be updates on the event’s social media if there is any severe weather that impacts the festival.