<\/p>\n
Two Montezuma County weather observers have been recognized by the National Weather Service for providing local weather information for more than a decade.<\/p>\n
Jim Andrus, of Cortez, and Wade Wilson, of Yellow Jacket, received \u201clength of service\u201d awards on May 11. Andrus has been a volunteer weather observer for 20 years; Wilson, for 15 years. Weather observers across the nation report daily on information such as temperature and precipitation to the weather service, and meteorologists then check the data and add them to the national archives.<\/p>\n
John Kyle, a data manager at the weather service\u2019s Grand Junction office, said there are about 80 volunteer weather observers in western Colorado and eastern Utah, who help provide long-term data about the region\u2019s climate. Cortez has had an observation site since 1929; and Yellow Jacket, since 1962. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the observer program began in the 1890s and, by 2007, included 10,000 observers.<\/p>\n
No meteorology experience is required, and weather observers come from various walks of life.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are just folks who are interested in weather and willing to make those daily observations,\u201d Kyle said. \u201cIt\u2019s based on desire over qualifications.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle said many regional volunteers quit after a few years, but some stay for the long haul. One has provided data from the Monticello area for more than 65 years, he said.<\/p>\n
Wilson, a farmer, took over the job from his father, who had made daily reports for 33 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen my dad retired, I took over because I think it\u2019s important,\u201d he said. \u201cThe National Weather Service is a very important, very functional agency, and we need them. They\u2019re real good at what they do.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said he enjoyed his time as a weather observer but stopped this year so he could focus on other things. A Yellow Jacket report will continue, though, as he\u2019s found someone to take over.<\/p>\n
Andrus has a degree in meteorology and worked as a weather spotter in Grand Junction for about three years before moving to Cortez in 1997. His volunteer duties allow him to stay involved with physical sciences, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like to think of what I do this way: I\u2019m taking the pulse of the earth,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m helping document the state of the global atmosphere, just like a nurse takes the temperature of a patient.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
and Wade Wilson recognized for service<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":67600,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,29,88,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-67599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-newsletter","tag-weather-news","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67599"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=67599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}