These Weather Watchers Work Up a Storm From Their Very Own Backyards

For Frances Dinkle, watching the weather is a way of life.

Each evening Dinkle, who is 87, and her dog, Rocko, trek across her yard to a weather station installed outside her Wasilla home to check the amount of rain or snow that fell in the previous 24 hours.

“It gives me an excuse to get out of the house,” Dinkle said. “It keeps me on my toes.”

Dinkle is among 100 or so Alaskans--and more than 8,000 people nationwide--who watch thermometers, scan the skies and record the day’s weather data.

They aren’t employed by the National Weather Service but provide important information about local conditions. The information is used by meteorologists who make local forecasts and by climatologists who track shifts in global weather patterns. Dinkle’s husband became a volunteer weather observer for the National Weather Service in 1947. After his death six years ago, Frances Dinkle became an observer.

In addition to precipitation data, she records the high and low temperatures each day. The information she records is sent each month to the National Weather Service office in Anchorage and to the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

“You get paid not in monetary stuff but by the satisfaction that you’ve done something for the government,” Dinkle said.

Dinkle is one of about 60 volunteer observers throughout the state who take readings once or twice a day. In areas where the weather service needs information updated throughout the day, observers are employed on a contractual basis.

There are 39 contract observers in Alaska, many of whom live in remote areas. Contract weather observers are paid $4.92 for each reading. It’s not a lot of money, but in rural areas where jobs are scarce, it’s a steady source of income.

Jim Hunter, who oversees the weather observers from the National Weather Service office in Anchorage, says the observers are a diverse group but share an interest in meteorology.

Meteorological technician Ken Clark trains the observers and checks the equipment they use to ensure that it is properly calibrated. He has traveled by plane, boat and helicopter to every corner of the state to visit observers, sometimes driving for hours on gravel roads and creek beds.

“You’d be surprised at some of the places we have observers,” Clark said. “When you run out of road, we’ll have an observer.”

On a recent morning, he visited contract observer Kay Shepherd, 80, of Whittier. Shepherd provides data from equipment installed in her apartment building. With help from neighbors and fellow observers Robert Wardlow and Brenda Tolman, Shepherd’s observation station provides data to the National Weather Service 24 hours a day. The information is used in aviation and marine forecasts for the Prince William Sound area.

Shepherd has been a contract observer since 1974, when she was living on St. Lawrence Island. She says the job has gotten more complex over the years.

“We have to learn about meteorology, cloud detail and wind direction,” Shepherd said. “It’s pretty technical, and it has to be accurate.”

The weather service doesn’t keep statistics on the age of weather observers.

But many of those who serve as volunteer observers are older people, according to Thomas Blackburn, who manages the volunteer program nationally.

“It’s hard to find young people that stay in one place for a long time to take observations,” he said.