Perkins County resident’s glass weather swan has become social media sensation

Perkins County, Nebraska, resident Tandy Overstreet never imagined that one of her family’s heirlooms would become a social media sensation. However, that is exactly what has happened to Overstreet’s nearly half-century-old glass weather swan. 

The swan is a weather glass, a small, open barometer filled with water and food coloring. It is a simple instrument designed to indicate when atmospheric pressure rises and falls, which causes the water in the spout to fall or rise, according to the website of the Regional and Mesoscale Meteorology Branch of the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere out of Fort Collins. 

From what Overstreet knows of her swan, it is more than 50 years old, and was one of four that her parents had made by a glassblower in Colorado, possibly the Estes Park area, she said. The swans were given to family members as gifts.

“Both sets of my grandparents got one, my aunt and uncle got one, and my parents kept one,” she said. “Unfortunately, there are only two left. My brother now has my aunt and uncle’s, and I have what was originally my grandparents’.”

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