WEATHER OBSERVERS RELUCTANTLY MAKE WAY FOR GIZMOS

One thing that seems to be a constant when it comes to studying the weather is that everything changes.

After 46 years in the weather business, Don Semancik, a weather observer for Midwest Weather Inc. at the Cape Girardeau Regional Airport, is being pushed out by one of those changes.

Semancik and five other airport weather observers will be replaced March 5 by a fully automated system called an Automatic Surface Observation System, or ASOS.

"This is not the brightest idea in the world," Semancik said. "There are times when I look up there and the weather's pleasant and the skies are clear and it says light snow."

ASOS is a system being put into place by the National Weather Service and the FAA that doesn't require an office or supervision and is significantly cheaper to operate.

Pilots can radio in for automated updates directly from the computer. Businesses and the public can call in by telephone.

Some things ASOS is weak on identifying are fog, haze and approaching storms.

Semancik said equipment has progressively improved weather reporting but it's a mistake to take the safety check of a human observer out of the system.

Dennis Slieighter, a meteorologist intern with the National Weather Service in Paducah, Ky., said ASOS is limited in some ways but adaptations are being made to upgrade it.

"The one at Paducah does not have a sensor to detect thunderstorms," Slieighter said. "They are developing one and when it is developed it will be used. But until that time thunderstorms have to be sighted by an individual."

Slieighter said he thinks control tower personnel would be able to insert data ASOS is unable to compile. He added that ASOS has the ability to collect all the information necessary for the needs of an airport.

When he first started working for the U.S. Air Force at a base in Illinois, Semancik said, weather observers did it all. They sent up weather balloons to check atmospheric conditions and temperatures, coordinated flights with the pilots and kept track of weather conditions using radar.

He said equipment like Doppler radar and satellites have increased the observer's information-gathering capabilities while cutting out some of the footwork. Semancik still checks the dew point, humidity, high and low temperatures and precipitation levels by manual observation.

In an elevated box near the airport's control tower are the tools of the trade. A Coffeemate dry creamer jar full of water sits next to a wet bulb and dry bulb thermometer. After dipping one end of the wet bulb gauge in the creamer jar, Semancik is able to tell the dew point and relative humidity by comparing readings off these two instruments as air is passed over them. The precipitation gauge is a tall tube with a measuring stick.

ASOS takes readings electronically. The new rain gauge has two cups that tip over with every hundredths of an inch of water that accumulates in them. Each tip activates a counter and ASOS tabulates the precipitation level this way.

Semancik said another change in the weather business in the last few years has been public contact.

"I've seen that slipping toward the end when the weather service says we don't want to spend our time talking directly to the public; we want to put something like a recording on and put on there what we think they want," he said. "There's so many things that come into play, I just don't think we should be rushing into this thing."