Return to main weather page
Tuesday, January 7, 2003
Staff photo by Gian Luiso
Richard Hanauer of Buckingham fashionedcollectors to measure snowfall. |
A passion for weather runs through his veins
Richard Hanauer is a spotter for the National Weather Service. He was bitten by the weather bug at age 6.
Staff Writer
Last month was the third-snowiest December since Buckingham resident Richard Hanauer began keeping records in 1973.
An El Niño system in the eastern Pacific Ocean, which often spawns many storms in the South, contributed to storms here as a high-pressure system in the Atlantic pressed those storms north when they might have otherwise gone out to sea.
But El Niño might be weakening, according to Hanauer, a weather enthusiast since he was 6 years old who monitors weather models. Hanauer thinks the dominant theme for the next couple weeks may just be cold. Arctic air flowing through Canada could make it a cold 10 days or so, and while that could mean snow, that Arctic air is often very dry.
Hanauer's projections are based on more than history and a hunch.
In Hanauer's study, his desk hosts a range of weather instruments, displays and recording devices, with a second desk holding the Macintosh computer he uses to check weather sites and newsgroups. On the wall above the monitor is a large picture of Ebbets Field, the old Brooklyn Dodgers stadium, and a framed baseball board game from decades ago.
Hanauer has records of the temperature, rainfall and snowfall in his back yard for nearly every day of the past 30 years. He has books on weather in general and on significant weather events. Outside, a dozen instruments dot his back yard, collecting rain, temperature readings and snowfall depths. He has barometers and anemometers measuring pressure and wind.
"It is like baseball. It is a very data-oriented hobby," Hanauer explains. "You like to be able to communicate with other people with similar interests, and the common ground between you is your data."
It is the data that allows Hanauer to know when a storm really is the biggest in a decade or when it is the coldest Jan. 8 he has seen in Bucks County. It is the data that lets him say definitively that his Buckingham home has averaged 48.74 inches of rain and 28.2 inches of snow each year since the mid-1970s. And to gather that data Hanauer, a retired chemical engineer, has several of each required device positioned and protected to record the most accurate numbers.
| ||||||||||||||||
"If I just used one I would never know if it was accurate or not. I know how to handle an instrument and calibrate an instrument and expose an instrument. I follow certain rules. I try to do it right," Hanauer said. "Since I'm a scientist, one of the things I really try to stress is accuracy."
Hanauer shares some of his data with the National Weather Service, as a Skywarn weather spotter for the agency, reporting local conditions with particular attention to tornadoes, strong winds, hail or sleet, flooding and heavy rain or snow.
He is one of about 2,000 spotters in the 34 counties in four states covered by the National Weather Service's Mount Holly office. Bucks County probably has about 20 or 25 active spotters, according to the county's assistant coordinator, Marc Bjorkman of Newtown. Montgomery County has about 50 active spotters, co-coordinator Bob Duran said.
For some of the spotters, like Hanauer, a fascination with weather lead to the volunteer duty. But not all the spotters are weather enthusiasts. Others, like Duran, volunteer from an interest in amateur radio, which is one way spotters report their observations. Given the speed and independence of amateur radio, spotters can get information to the Weather Service regardless of whether phones are down and in time for warnings to be issued.
"In one instance this year, one of our members called in a report, and in less than 60 seconds that exact report was going across the bottom of the screen on all the TV stations," Duran said. "We're just a piece of the puzzle, but we're fast and effective."
Bjorkman got involved in amateur radio through weather spotting when he noticed most other spotters were on the air. He said he found his fascination with weather somewhat isolating before volunteering for the National Weather Service.
"It gives you an outlet that's useful to the general public," he said. "Otherwise, there's not much you can do with it except look up in the sky and say, 'I think it's going to rain.' It is nice to have the National Weather Service call you up and say, 'So, what's it doing out there, Marc?'"
The Weather Service has a map of spotters' homes that can be matched to radar maps; spotters shown near severe events are consulted to learn more detail. Since radar can miss weather events occurring low to the ground and far from the radar station, spotters are an essential part of the process. In addition, the National Weather Service collects most of its data with automated instruments, which can't measure snowfall, so spotters are needed for that as well.
"Our weather radar will give us an indication of what should be happening," said Roy Miller of the Weather Service. "We like to have it verified. The volunteers are very invaluable, believe me."
Miller said the Weather Service never has to recruit weather spotters; if they notice a county is light on coverage, they schedule a training session and the volunteers come to them.
There are plenty of weather enthusiasts, Miller said, many like Hanauer with their own weather stations.
Mark E. Jolly can be reached at mjolly@phillyBurbs.com
