Weather Observers Honored With Thomas Jefferson Award
Fred and Della Wix of Culbertson are recipients of the National Weather Service Thomas Jefferson Award for their decades of service to the cooperative weather observing program. Only five of these awards are given annually to honor weather observers across the nation who have dedicated their time to capturing the weather and climate records of their local area.
This award was named in honor of Thomas Jefferson, our third President, who kept an almost unbroken series of weather records from 1776 to 1816.
A virtual ceremony was held on Jan. 25. The actual award will be delivered in person at a future date.
The Wixes have been involved in recording weather observations since July 1, 1975. Together, they have recorded the daily temperature, precipitation, snowfall and snow depth in Culbertson. Their culminative efforts amount to over 16,000 weather observations. They have been outdoors reporting weather observations under extreme weather conditions from temperatures of 48 degrees below zero in February 2019 to 109 degrees in June of 1988. They have measured record precipitation and snowfall (2010-2011) and documented devastating drought such as the flash drought of 2017.
The Thomas Jefferson Award is the most prestigious award a cooperative observer can receive. All candidates for the Jefferson Award are required to have been a past recipient of the Holm Award, an award the Wixes received.
Brian Burleson, the observation program lead at NWS Glasgow stated, “The Wixes’ unselfish service in weather observing and record keeping for the community of Culbertson and the National Weather Service provides valuable climate information and near real-time verification of forecasts and warnings. The Wixes’ reports help us accurately document the climate of the region and that information is used by many entities from local, state and federal agencies to insurance companies and researchers.”
He noted that their data is freely available for use through the NWS Glasgow website.
NOAA understands and predicts changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and conserves and manages our coastal and marine resources. Visit noaa.gov or NWS Glasgow at weather.gov/glasgow.
For more information about the NWS Cooperative Observer Program, visit weather.gov/om/coop.
