“I love the peace of mind. With everything athletic trainers have to deal with, we don’t want to have to deal with weather. Time is important. Perry Weather helps me do my job more efficiently and effectively.”
Mater Dei High School is a private Catholic school located in Santa Ana, California, with a student body of 2,100 students and 1,400 athletes. They’re known for their strong sports programs, particularly football.
In fact, they boast some pretty successful alumni such as Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Nikko Remigio, who you may recognize from the 2025 Big Game, and three Heisman Trophy winners: John Huarte, Matt Leinart, and more recently Bryce Young.
Preparing this caliber of young and upcoming athletes for a professional sports career is intense, and Mater Dei Head Athletic Trainer Kevin Anderson has seen it all.
As a Board Certified Athletic Trainer (ATC), he’s responsible for the safety of student athletes, which ranges from emergency care, to CPR, injury prevention, rehab treatment and more.
He’s committed to doing the best he can for his students: “I love being an athletic trainer. We take care of our student athletes and help them get back on the field. I love sports and want to make sure that they’re performing at their optimal ability.”
But something that his athletic training certification didn’t quite prepare him for: playing meteorologist.
Like many California schools, outdoor athletic activities are often impacted by the weather, specifically lightning, heat stress and air quality, and these factors take a toll on the safety of the athletes.
We spoke with Anderson about what tools he was previously using to stay compliant with CIF policies, and how Perry Weather helped him to automate manual processes and get more face time with his student athletes.
The challenge: Too many tools, too little time
California schools are subject to policies and guidelines determined by the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF), the governing body for high school athletics in the State of California.
That includes weather safety recommendations like heat stress, lightning and air quality.
Each of these policies requires Anderson to track weather metrics on a daily basis to make sure the conditions are optimal for outdoor activity, and make adjustments on-the-fly, as needed.
And when CIF updates their recommendations, it’s Anderson’s job to take note and educate coaches, students and parents. But keeping up with constantly changing policies is a lot of mental energy, and he needed a way to keep up and keep compliant.
In addition to the mental energy required to keep up with changing policies and educate colleagues, compliance with these policies in the first place requires multiple tools to measure each of these metrics.
Mater Dei’s Heat Stress Monitoring Upgrade from WeatherBug to Perry Weather
Before switching to Perry Weather, Anderson used an app called WeatherBug to determine air quality and heat stress metrics.
It was working well enough, with one seemingly small issue: after gathering the temperature and humidity metrics from WeatherBug, Anderson then had to compare the metrics from the app to a heat index chart to translate the metrics into actionable directions for his team and students.
But this manual process means back and forth between the field and his office, and even after consulting with his heat stress cheat sheet, he then has to make a call and communicate to the rest of his team.
And it wasn’t even an accurate measurement of heat stress on the body: “We used to use heat index, which takes temp and humidity into consideration but wet bulb globe temperature (WBGT) is more accurate and takes direct sunlight and wind into consideration. We’ve switched to WBGT in our policies and Perry Weather helped us do this.”
Furthermore, this process is reactive. He was looking at current conditions, and had no way to proactively view a forecast of heat stress metrics to plan ahead for practices – there had to be a better way.
With Perry Weather, this process is completely automated.
Anderson can set a heat stress policy within the app that aligns with mandates from CIF. Every morning, he can look at the app to get a “policy risk” daily digest so he can make proactive decisions.
Additionally, when current conditions for heat stress or air quality hit an unsafe threshold, he and everyone else on his team will get an instant notification from the app with a predetermined course of action.
This helps Anderson stay on top of changing policies: “When CIF changes a policy, I can update that in my app and we’ll get updates in the case of any breaches.”
More Accurate, On-Site Air Quality Monitoring
In addition to WeatherBug, Anderson was also using AQI Now, another free app, to measure air quality – a major concern for California schools.
But given that air quality is very location dependent and can literally change with the winds, the app would often give poor air quality measurements when in reality, the air was ok. Anderson didn’t feel like he could trust the data.
“We used AQI Now to calculate air quality, which doesn’t update as often and isn’t as accurate because it’s not an on-campus sensor. It could give us poor air quality due to winds blowing from a brushfire, but it’s actually further away. And it’s often worse in the morning but it clears in the evening when we should still be able to play games.”
With Perry Weather, his school has an AQI sensor which provides him with air quality data where activities will occur. No more false alarms.
He’s able to get heat stress and air quality data all from a single platform.
Additional Benefits of Switching to Perry Weather
Explore more ways Perry Weather helps schools automate weather safety:
Easy Weather Policy Creation
With the Perry Weather app, Anderson can configure his weather policy settings to align with those of CIF, and update them as needed.
He can set a policy for any of the weather metrics tracked in the Perry Weather dashboard, including:
- Wet Bulb Globe Temperature
- Heat Index
- Air Quality Index
- Lightning (Strikes and Distance)
- Precipitation
- Wind (Wind Chill, Wind Speed, Wind Gust)
When any of these weather conditions surpass his predetermined policies, his team will get automated alerts.
Automated Alerts to Streamline Communications
Before switching to Perry Weather, Anderson’s team and athletic coaches were all using different free apps which all display different conditions across all the weather metrics that are important to his team.
With the automated alerts from his policies, Anderson can set his team as user groups so they get the notifications relevant to them, complete with instructions.
“I can send automatic updates to coaches and athletic department, for example, ‘Today we can practice with helmets and shoulder pads but shorts, no pants.’ We can make an adjustment and let coaches know prior to practice.”
Perry Weather will also notify the team during practice, which is just one more thing they don’t have to worry about.
“As an athletic trainer, we already have a lot on our plates, and I’m thankful for Perry Weather because it takes the weather portion off my plate. I don’t have to think about it. I can have peace of mind about it.”
On-Call Meteorologist Support
Perry Weather customers get 24/7 access to a professional meteorology team via phone, app or email in case of any questions that aren’t answered in their dashboard. Which is rare, but a useful resource!
In fact, during an anticipated hurricane, Anderson was able to request a meteorologist to email him daily forecast updates so he knew exactly when to be concerned. This offered peace of mind and is one more thing Anderson doesn’t have to stress about.
Did you know: The Perry Weather Meteorology Team sends customers updates when a major weather event, like a hurricane or winter storm, will impact one of their locations. (Some customers even add a vacation travel destination to their dashboard juuuust in case they need to plan for a flight delay 😉 )
Anderson says it best: “I’m not a meteorologist.”
Luckily, we’ve got his back!
Conclusion: One seamless platform to automate weather safety compliance
Here at Perry Weather, we strive to be the best weather technology platform available to schools and athletic programs, so athletic trainers and directors can better support their students with less hassle.
Anderson, like many athletic trainers across the country, trusts Perry Weather with outdoor air quality and heat stress monitoring, state weather policy mandates, and meteorologist support. It’s less he has to worry about.
“Perry Weather helps me be a better athletic trainer. Lightning, low air quality and heat – these are all key aspects of emergency care, especially during summer practices. We can give students and coaches accurate updates right away. It’s another portion of our job that we don’t have to worry about.”
