The founder, president and chairman of AccuWeather, Inc. has donated $2 million to Penn State’s meteorology department, the university announced today.

The gift from Joel N. Myers, who is also a Penn State trustee and alumnus, is the largest ever made to that department.

The new weather center on the sixth floor of the Walker Building will benefit from the gift and will be named “The Joel N. Myers Weather Center.”

“AccuWeather’s success has been tied to the Penn State experience in many ways and for many decades. What I learned from this great University as an undergraduate and graduate student, as a faculty member for 17 years, and then for the past 28 years as a member of the Board of Trustees, has been a major factor in my success, and in the success of many people who have been affiliated with Penn State,” Myers said in a statement. “This donation is one way in which I want to say ‘thank you’ for what Penn State has meant to me throughout my life.”

Students will benefit from state-of-the-art weather forecasting technology in the new center, and will have access to the Local AccuWeather Channel and AccuWeather.com Professional.

Myers founded AccuWeather on his own as a Penn State graduate student in 1962. The former one-man show is now recognized internationally in all forms of media.

“We’re extremely proud that the name of one of Penn State’s most prominent and influential graduates in meteorology will be identified with one of the Department of Meteorology’s most visible and important facilities,” Penn State President Graham Spanier said in the statement.