Predicting the unpredictable
Rutland’s William Sharp wins national weather award
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National Weather Service volunteer Bill Sharp was honored with a prestigious weather watcher award Friday morning in ceremonies at Sharp Printing. Sharp stands by the rain gauge that sits in his backyard among other National Weather Service instruments. Albert J. Marro / Rutland Herald |
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By Cristina Kumka STAFF WRITER - Published: November 14, 2009
He’s the predictable guy who’s measured the unpredictable for the last 26 years without fail.
With the help of his loyal companion Rudy and wife Lynn Sharp, Rutland’s William Sharp has never missed a day of weather readings from his Phillips Street backyard since 1983 — recording the city’s snowy inches, rainfall and highs and lows for locals and climate experts alike.
He recorded the city’s coldest day in more than 90 years — minus 36 degrees on Jan. 27, 1994 — at the cooperative weather station he maintains, set up by the National Weather Service.
He’s seen weather reading reporting go from telephone to computer.
On Friday, meteorologists from the National Weather Service in South Burlington recognized Sharp, a passionate volunteer who wakes up each morning at 7 a.m. to satisfy the thirst for weather he’s had since he was a young boy.
He received the prized John Campanius Holm award for at least 25 years of accurate reporting to the weather service, the local community and a national climate database.
Holm was the first known person to have taken weather observations in the American colonies between 1644 and 1645, according to the National Weather Service.
Sharp is one of 25 award recipients this year, chosen out of thousands of observers who man the weather service’s 11,000 observation posts nationwide.
Three meteorologists from the South Burlington office have clinched the awards so far, an accomplishment for one station out of 123 nationwide.
“People looking at climate change are basically using his data,” said Andy Nash, meteorologist in charge for the South Burlington office.
Nash said Sharp was due the prize for his “high quality” reporting with no false readings through the years.
He sends the latest information to the South Burlington office, gives daily readings to the Rutland Herald and is involved with the region’s emergency management team.
Nash, Eastern Region Cooperative Manager Lora Mueller and Observation Program Leader Gerald Macke presented Sharp with a plaque from the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at his other office, Sharp and Co. Printers on Park Street on Friday morning.
The conversation quickly turned to how Sharp gained local fame — the word “nor’icane.”
But few people know that the term associated with the strong wind storm that blew through the city in 2007 was his wife’s idea, the couple agreed.
“We said, we’re passed the time for a nor’easter and it’s not a hurricane,” Sharp said.
“It’s a nor’icane!” Lynn Sharp recalled saying. “Let’s say I’m a silent partner here.”
The slogan was used by locals, printed on the back of Rutland’s 2006-2007 city report, and according to Nash, it even made its way up the South Burlington office, joked about by meteorologists who wondered where the name came from.
But coming up with a slogan is only one fond memory Sharp and his wife associate with their reading of temperatures and precipitation for the last two decades.
The couple said weather has always been a part of their lives and is nearly ever-present in memories of their family life.
Where there were kids, there were weather boxes.
Their dog regularly ran out to get readings with them.
Sharp said recording the weather is his public service.
“This is my way of giving back,” he said.
cristina.kumka@rutlandherald.com
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