Reading the Weather
By JODY MURPHY
POSTED: January 13, 2008
PARKERSBURG — Every morning Wayne Boone diligently takes weather readings at the Parkersburg wastewater treatment plant on 19th Street.
The readings are needed because the amount of rain or snowfall also affects the amount of water coming into the plant.
Boone’s measurements are also sent to the National Weather Service in Charleston. The utility board has been providing the National Weather Service with weather information in Parkersburg for a number of years.
Jim Dent, hydrological-meteorological technician, does quality control for the National Weather Service in Charleston. The weather service gets to 50 to 60 climatological observations a day, covering West Virginia, eastern Ohio, northwestern Kentucky and southwestern Virginia.
“When the weather observations come in we have to look at them and make sure they are reasonable. Make sure the numbers aren’t out of whack,” Dent said.
Dent said the data from the climatological observation stations come in at different times throughout the morning and are plotted into a program every 15 minutes.
Boone said the National Weather Service solicits for individuals to do day-to-day records of the weather. Boone said the city’s treatment plant got involved a few years ago.
“I think because other municipal treatment plants and wastewater treatment plants were doing this, we fell in line,” he said. “It has been mutually beneficial.”
The weather service needs the information. So much so, it provides measuring equipment and training supplies.
“They have a DVD to tell us how to go about measuring snow and how to report it,” Boone said.
The plant has a rain gauge and a snowboard for taking measurements.
“A little 2-by-2 board that we level up,” Boone said. “We have it sitting on the ground so we can measure new snow. We have a portion of the board we can remove snow and measure new snow versus remaining snow.”
Boone takes reading every morning at 7 a.m. For the weather service, the day’s measuring period runs from 7 a.m. to 7 a.m.
“When we take the readings this morning at 7 a.m., it counted for yesterday’s total,” Boone said.
Ray Young, a forecaster for the National Weather Service, says the data collected by Boone and others is funneled into several channels. Young said the weather service uses the data to keep track of long-term weather trends.
“On a short-term basis, we have forecasters who look at the data to see how we did with the forecasts,” Young said.
Young said all the data collected is saved and stored.
“Nothing is ever thrown away,” he said.
Young said the National Climatic Data Center, North Carolina, stores all the climatic data reports that have ever been taken.
“Most of those date back to the 1800s,” he said.
Boone has been taking precipitation measurements since the turn of the century — the 21st century. Prior to that, the weather service relied on Hope Gas to provide the information.
Boone’s daily measurements, which include the day’s high and low temperature, precipitation and melt, are vital to providing and producing historical weather data.
“We have information sent back to us,” Boone said. “Since we are a national weather observation site, information comes in the form of monthly comparison.”
Boone said the plant has month-by-month comparisons of the days weather, dating back five years. He said the treatment plant will continue providing the weather service with the area’s weather statistics.
“We will do it for the foreseeable future,” he said.
Contact Jody Murphy at
jmurphy@newsandsentinel.com
