During the November storm that dumped more than a half-foot of snow across the region, I had the good fortune of speaking with Sue Conklin. It was Conklin, a Lewiston school teacher, who pointed out a strange thing happening with the weather during that particular storm: Somewhere around mid-day, the storm came to an end in Lewiston but kept on chugging in Turner and points north. Conklin and her family have equipment that allowed her to actually see that line of demarcation and understand what was happening. She can also explain weird weather phenomenon such as “The Androscoggin Bubble,” which sounds like it ought to be a horror movie set in one of Lewiston’s old mills.

But enough about that. We caught up with Conklin and her family long enough to get an education in local weather. And one thing is clear: They know enough about wind, snow and rain that we should all feel safe to blame them whenever the weather is not to our liking.

Why the interest in the weather? (Husband) Bob was in the Coast Guard Auxiliary in the mid-1970s and had to be aware of the weather at all times and had to be ready to react when needed. He often listened to the scanner to follow the weather. Always wanting to know what was happening with the weather, he decided to build a Heathkit Weather System and ran that from 1984 to 2000. That system included an anemometer, thermometer and barometer. He then upgraded to a Radio Shack wireless system with many additional features. Being involved in various activities with his sons, such as sports and scouting, it was always important to have updated weather information. Then, upon moving from Greene to Turner in 2005 and realizing that we had the ideal location for a personal weather station plus our family interest in computers, it was only natural that we established a weather website. Our oldest son, Matthew, did an independent study class about weather with one of the science teachers at Leavitt Area High School. He was also in the meteorology club at Lyndon State College. Our youngest son, Joshua, has an interest in photography as well as weather, which led to video taping the ending rotation of a tornado which hit Oxford County. The video was featured on one of the local television stations. Data and pictures from our website have been used on occasion by all three of the local television stations. Both Matthew and Joshua are also trained storm spotters for the National Weather Service.

What kind of equipment do you have? We have two weather stations. One provides the online information with the data sent from several outdoor weather gauges to a computerized software program that interprets the data and puts it out on the web. Additionally, there are three rain gauges, two snow measuring boards, and two Pelco cameras. One camera provides time-lapse picture taking and the other camera is live streaming video. Each night the time-lapse video is made into a movie of the day’s weather activity. Videos are available for viewing on the website back to April 2006. The other weather station provides quality assurances for the original data. This past summer we changed how our website looks and it gives more detailed information.

How good is the Farmer’s Almanac? The Farmer’s Almanac is about 95 percent accurate. In fact, they predicted the pre-Halloween and pre-Thanksgiving storms correctly. And, oh, by the way, they are predicting “heavy rains and possible flooding” for just before Christmas. We shall see what happens.

Do your friends blame you when the weather is lousy? Unfortunately, yes they do. And my response is always, “Don’t blame the messenger/weather geek.” But the weather information does come in handy at  school when determining if we will have to plan for an inside recess, either because of rain or the temperature is too cold for the children to go out. The children love to watch the visual radar when rain or snow storms are approaching.

What’s the hardest thing about tracking the weather? There is a phenomenon that we call the “Androscoggin Bubble.” Very often, storms that are coming from the west tend to make a circle around Androscoggin County and we do not get any precipitation, or we get it later than our neighboring areas when the bubble fills itself in. We have seen this happen many times over the years. If the storms come in from the south or east we tend to get more than others. The pre-Thanksgiving storm had a distinct line of where it was snowing and not snowing. That line was right between the Lewiston/Auburn area and Turner. It snowed two to three hours longer here (in Turner), resulting in a total of 12 inches of snow in Turner, as compared to Lewiston’s 9 inches. We are definitely not meteorologists and do not have the skills they do in predicting the weather or interpreting the various computer models that they have, but it is a fun hobby that we enjoy sharing through our website, www.southturnermaineweather.com.

Copy the Story Link