Recognizing 55 years of dedicated service, NOAA’s National Weather Service (NWS) presented the Benjamin Franklin award to Mr. Bob Levin, the official weather observer for the Smith Center, Kansas area. The presentation was on June 5th, at his home in Smith Center. Phil Poyner, Meteorologist in Charge from the NWS Forecast Office near Hastings, Nebraska, and Mike Reed, Observation Program Leader, presented the award. Mr. Levin will also be celebrating his 86th birthday on Thursday, June 8th.
Mr. Levin volunteered to become the cooperative observer for the Smith Center, Kansas, area in 1967 and has continuously provided daily observations of temperatures and precipitation. In his 55 years of service, Bob has provided over 20,000 daily observations to the National Weather Service. These reports are important and contain data used by NWS forecasters, hydrologists and climate scientists, as well as various government, educational entities, public and private organizations.
Mr. Levin has previously received the two most prestigious awards obtainable as a NWS observer for his outstanding work with the National Weather Service. The John Campanius Holm award, which is presented to only 25 observers each year nationally, and the Thomas Jefferson award, which is limited to only 5 observers each year. There are over 10,000 official NWS observers across the nation.
Continuous observation records provide an accurate picture of a specific locale’s normal weather, and give climatologists and others a basis for predicting future trends. These data are invaluable for scientists studying floods and drought, heat and cold waves. At the end of each month, these records are archived at the National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI), and then published as “Climatological Data” or “Hourly Precipitation Data”.
The first extensive network of cooperative stations was set up in the 1890s, as a result of the 1890 act of Congress that established the United States Weather Bureau, now known as the National Weather Service. Many historic figures have maintained weather records, including John Campanius Holm, a Lutheran minister from the original thirteen colonies, who is generally believed to have been one of the first Americans to keep detailed climatological records around 1620. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson also maintained weather records. Thomas Jefferson maintained an almost unbroken record of weather observations between 1775 and 1816.
