By Penny Williams
Staff writer
July 20, 2008 05:31 am Hampstead resident John Kelley is all about weather, specifically with weather data collection. He works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration as a meteorologist. He is also a member of the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program. Kelley used his skills and interests to help Hampstead Central School get a weather station for student use and as a community service. Local weather data is updated daily on the school Web site.
What is your job at NOAA? I am meteorologist with NOAA's National Ocean Service/Coastal Survey Development Laboratory and work at the NOAA-UNH Joint Hydrographic Center in Durham. I work on the development and evaluation of computer-based oceanographic model forecast systems for U.S. estuaries and the Great Lakes, which are used to predict water currents, water temperatures, water levels and salinity.
What is the NWS Cooperative Observer Program? It consists of more than 11,000 volunteers who take observations on farms, in urban and suburban areas, national parks, seashores, and mountaintops. The first network of cooperative stations was established in 1890, that established the Weather Bureau, but many COOP stations started earlier. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin all maintained weather records.
How did you become involved with the program? The National Weather Service office in Gray, Maine, was looking to establish an official cooperative climatological station in the area. I volunteered to be set up a station at my home. I became an official National Weather Service Cooperative Observer on Dec. 1, 2003. The cooperative climatological station is located in West Hampstead and is referred to by the NWS station ID HMPN3.
What data do you collect and what do you do with it? I take a daily observation seven days a week at 7 a.m. of the following variables: present weather, cloud cover, high and low temperatures during the past 24 hours, present air temperature, total precipitation during the past 24 hours, total snow depth, different weather phenomenon — fog, ice pellets, hail, damaging wind.
How is this data used? The observations are used by National Weather Service forecasters for verifying their weather forecasts for interior Rockingham County. The NWS Northeast River Forecast Center in Taunton, Mass., uses the observations to estimate precipitation over the watershed, an important input into computer-based river forecast models. During the winter months, a wildlife biologist at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department uses the snowpack observations for estimating the impact of snow cover on deer population and setting the future hunting season.
How does this activity fit in with your position at NOAA? There is no direct connection. The taking of daily observations is one of my hobbies. I have been taking daily observations almost continuously since I was 11 years old.
Who takes the observations when you are away from home? Our neighbors and friends, the Londrigan family, is kind enough to take daily observations when I am away. I am also training my son Sean to take observations when I am out of town.
—
Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.
Photos
John Kelly takes weather data readings every day at his Hampstead weather station and reports his findings to Gray, Maine. He has been doing this all his life and thoroughly enjoys both the collection of the data and figuring out what it all means. Staff photo