Last year, Raymond Pesce and Dana Johnson of Cloverdale were chosen to be official National Weather Service Observers. The NWS Cooperative Observer Program, created in 1890 is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. More than 8700 volunteers take observations on farms, in urban and suburban areas, National Parks, seashores and mountaintops.
Raymond and Dana provide observational meteorological data, usually consisting of daily maximum and minimum temperatures, 24 hour precipitation totals, information that defines the climate of the United States and to help measure long-term climate changes.
The Cloverdale National Weather Service Cooperative Observing station was established and began reporting temperature and rainfall on July 21, 1950. The weather station was first located at the Rounds and Kilpatrick Lumber Company. In 1992 the station was moved to the Cloverdale Fire Department where it remained until 2019.
Hearing that the NWS was looking for a new site, Dana contacted the NWS. After inteviews and a site inspection, the weather station was installed at Ray and Dana’s home on Chablis Way. Each day the daily maximum and minimum temperatures and the precipitation amount are collected via the weather station, fed into a monitor in the home and then that data must be entered into a digital logbook on the computer. The equipment that is installed consists of a large rain gauge and an air temperature monitor that looks somewhat like a beehive on a pole.
National Weather Service Monitors in Cloverdale
