MULLEN WEATHER STATION

by Joan Rogers

Entry T83 from the History of Hooker County Nebraska
with permission of the Hooker County Historical Society

The weather station for readings, outside the
Robert and Joan Rogers home in Mullen.

The reporting station is in the home of
Robert and Joan Rogers. It is the only one of
its kind in the State of Nebraska. It is
supported by the National Weather Service,
the State Department of Aeronautics, and
the local community of Mullen.

There are three licensed observers: Joan
Rogers, Robert Rogers and Judy Ridenour.
They must make at least 10 observations a
month to maintain the license.

The duties of the observers are to make 13
observations per day, seven days a week.
Those observations begin at 5:30 a.m. and
end at 5:30 p.m. The observer must record the
total cloud cover, the height of each layer of
clouds and the kinds of clouds. The tempera-
ture and dew point, wind direction and speed
and barometric pressure also are recorded
each hour. The observer will also record the
visibility at eye level and any obscuring
phenomena either ground based or in the
form of precipitation that may be occurring.
The observer will measure the amount of
precipitation that has fallen or left on the
ground in the case of snow every first and last
observation. In the event of any severe
weather between hourly observations the
observer will make another special report.

These daily logs are sent in to North Platte
at the end of each month and they are
inspected for errors, etc. All of the data
compiled in the Mullen Weather Station
since June 1965 is available either at the local
station or in the Climatological Center in
Atlanta, GA. All observations are recorded
and disemminated within minutes to the
whole nation. The local station fills in a
vacant spot between Alliance, North Platte,
Broken Bow, Chadron and Rapid City.
Doctor Joe Saults was the original planner of
this facility being placed in Mullen in 1965.