….or at least appreciate them.
Today is National Weatherperson’s Day, which commemorates the birth of John Jeffries, one of America’s first weather observers. According to the National Weather Service, Jeffries began taking daily weather observations in Boston in 1774. Ten years later, he took the first balloon observation. Jeffries kept weather records from 1774 to 1816.
It’s easy to complain when an expected dusting turns into a full-fledged snowstorm, or temperatures peak several degrees from where they were forecast.
But I think about how the weather service is staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and the long, strange hours even television meteorologists work during severe weather events.
I think about people like Mike Umscheid, the meteorologist on duty in the weather service’s Dodge City branch who had the foresight to issue a tornado emergency for Greensburg two years ago – a move that undoubtedly saved lives.
I think about the work Merril Teller, Jay Prater and Dave Freeman (and other meteorologists off camera) did for their television audiences that night in stressing the dangers of the storm that was unfolding; and how the people in Hoisington heard and heeded concerns voiced by meteorologists in 2001, going to their basements just before a tornado touched down just outside of town late at night and plowed through the northern part of the city. That only two people were killed by that tornado is remarkable, officials have told me more than once.
Those are only a couple of recent examples. I tip my cap, too, to the work done in years past by the likes of Cecil Carrier and Jim O’Donnell in the Wichita area and meteorologists around the world.
Mike Smith has moved into the private sector with WeatherData Services Inc., but he has been at the forefront of numerous technological advancements that have changed how people and businesses can get personalized forecasts and weather condition reports.
Meteorology is an important job, one often overlooked until our own lives are threatened by severe weather. On behalf of everyone who has ever wondered what the weather would be like on a given day, I say “Thank you.”