Low-Tech Weather Forecaster Hits the Mark

Rough seas can sink Frank Bechtolt’s dredging rig or drive it into the rocks. So when Bechtolt anchored his dredge outside the safety of Channel Islands Harbor last week, he turned to a man who had provided him trustworthy wind and wave forecasts for 26 years.

Surf shop owner Roger Nance relies on the same weatherman to cut through the mysteries of the Pacific and predict the arrival of big waves. Unlike other surfing competitions plagued by poor surf, Nance’s 14 annual contests at Rincon Point are distinguished by a remarkable run of towering waves.

Both men swear by forecaster Rea Strange, their oracle of ocean weather. So do the hundreds of other clients who entrust their livelihood, and sometimes their lives, to his marine weather predictions.

“I wouldn’t leave home without him, or at least without his forecasts,” said Sue Benech, a Ventura-based marine biologist who surveys the bottom of the ocean. “He’s been a lifesaver, an absolute wonder at predicting the weather.”

Predicting the weather is an imprecise business, with forecasts often thwarted by the shifting, swirling confluence of natural forces.

Yet, for all the unpredictable elements, Rea (pronounced Ray) Strange manages remarkable consistency in his forecasts, his clients and colleagues say. His secret: Drawing upon 37 years of watching weather patterns, he makes unequivocal predictions and then meticulously checks on what actually happens so he can refine his methodology.

“He has a better feeling for meteorology than any other meteorologist I’ve ever met,” said Nick Graham, a research meteorologist at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla. “In addition to his technical skills, his incredible memory makes him a genius in his field. He can remember what day of the week his birthday was when he was 12.”

At age 63, Strange remains one of the technological holdouts, plotting weather patterns the old-fashioned way--by hand. While most meteorologists count on satellite pictures and fancy computer programs, Strange spends his days drawing weather maps in his home office in Montecito.

He pores over data relayed from weather stations, ships at sea and buoys bobbing in the ocean to help him pencil in isobars--those squiggly, concentric lines that encircle high- and low-pressure areas. His drafting table is covered with hand-drawn maps. Hundreds of them hang from clips on the walls.

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Strange acknowledges that technology is catching up with him: Sophisticated computers are improving forecasts every year. Still, he said, he’s unlikely to change his ways.

“I don’t think I’d get any better results,” Strange said, stretching his lanky, athletic frame from the stool in his office. “I’m perfectly happy with the way I learned forecasting.”

Trained in meteorology by the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey in the mid-1950s, Strange moved to the area in late 1959 to advise oil companies of wind, waves and weather that could endanger crews and equipment drilling for oil beneath the waters of the Santa Barbara Channel.

He launched his own business, Pacific Weather Analysis, in 1977, and his clientele consists primarily of oil companies, shipping firms, dredging outfits and other businesses that ply their trade in the ocean. He also provides weather forecasts to county flood control agencies, the America’s Cup contenders and movie production crews.

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On weekday mornings, he telephones KVEN-AM as “Mr. Weather,” the station’s forecaster and straight man on the Dave & Bob Show. He uses the pseudonym Erich Wright, a name he and the station manager came up with over lunch a decade ago.

“He wanted anonymity, and we wanted another name than the ‘Strange Weather Report,’ ” said David Loe, president and general manager of the Ventura station. Strange likes to keep a low profile to avoid calls from the public that take time away from his paying customers--something particularly troublesome during heavy weather.

Loe said Strange offers a unique service. “We couldn’t get that kind of specific forecast anywhere else, even with the new National Weather Service office in Oxnard.”

The National Weather Service dominates the forecasting industry. But, of necessity, most of its forecasts cover broad areas and are of marginal use in predicting local weather.

That is where Strange has carved out his niche, pinpointing the weather forecast for a specific location. His most loyal clients are those who need to know what looms just over the horizon.

“He’s saved my bacon more than once,” said Tony Carter, the semi-retired owner of a tugboat company. For more than 30 years, he has relied on Strange to guide his tugs through calm seas while towing huge, tippy, oil construction rigs along the California coast.

Bechtolt, the dredging project manager at Oxnard’s Channel Islands Harbor, calls on Strange to help him keep his equipment operating as long as it is safe. “The longer I keep dredging, the more money I can make,” Bechtolt said.

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Last week, he anchored his dredge outside the harbor’s protective seawalls to begin siphoning sand from near the entrance. As the project progressed , Bechtolt kept in close contact with Strange to monitor any approaching swells or other hazard.

“He’s about 99% right, compared to the reports on the news, which are 50% correct,” Bechtolt said. “I could have something sink or get washed up on the beach. He’ll tell me when I should pull my butt into a safe harbor.”

The clients of Strange have stories about his wizardry that helps them keep one step ahead of the weather.

Nance, the surf shop owner, recalls seeking Strange’s advice before setting the date of one of his first surfing contests. The day before the event, the ocean was as flat as a lake on a windless day. Local surfers flooded his shop with calls to postpone the contest.

About 2 a.m., as his guru foretold, the big swell arrived. Nance remembers it well. He lived in a beach house at the time and was awakened by the thunderous crash of the breakers. “Every year at my contests, people come up to me and say, ‘How did you ever know?’ ”

Indeed, Strange has been elevated to something of a mystical seer in some circles of surfers who are constantly on the prowl for big, peeling waves. His legendary status is reinforced by stories of his pinpointing the precise time a swell would hit the beach. Strange’s daughter, Marianne, is familiar with her father’s reputation among veteran watermen.

“When the first sets of waves arrive, they say, ‘Here come the Strange sets,’ ” she said. “I’ve never minded it, but when I introduce myself to fishermen or surfers, they say, ‘Are you Rea Strange’s daughter?’ They want to know all about him.”

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Rick Vogel, a longtime friend and big-wave surfer, said he has watched Strange perfect his wave forecasting over the years with empirical data that allowed him to revise the textbooks on the subject for his own use.

In the mid-1970s, Strange would be as much as eight hours off on his predicted arrival of a swell, Vogel said. The gap has narrowed dramatically.

“I’ve kept written records of all of the swells he’s forecasted and he nails 18 out of 20,” Vogel said. “Anytime his forecast broke down, he would be ticked off about it. It usually translated into a gap in his data. With the right data, the guy’s flawless.”

A framed color picture hangs in Strange’s office of Vogel surfing a thunderous 30-foot wave on Feb. 13, 1983, in northwestern Santa Barbara County. Strange had predicted the enormous swell.

As for himself, Strange has carved out a niche not only as marine weather forecaster but as a man who has simplified his personal life to its most important elements. He lives in the Montecito foothills in a modest house with his wife of 38 years, Juliana, and a menagerie of dogs, cats and exotic birds always underfoot or flapping about.

He finds order in the chaos by driving down the hill to a beach for a three-fourths-mile ocean swim each afternoon.

Strange takes pride in his professional reputation, but he says his friends and clients have overblown the precision of his forecasts.

“There are so many damned ways you can be wrong,” he said, “and so few ways you can be right.”

His clients say his protests are characteristic of the thoughtful, reserved weatherman with extraordinary high standards, whom they have grown to trust.

“Just about every marine contractor relies very heavily on his information,” said Chuck Ebner, Ventura operations manager of Oceaneering International Inc., an underwater construction and services company. “He is he closest guy to God that I know of as far as predicting the weather.”