Local weather observer will be honored

PITTSBURGH – Edwin R. Copeland of Hanoverton, Ohio, (Station Millport 2 NW) will be honored posthumously with the National Weather Service Forecast Office’s Edward H. Stoll award May 18.
This award is presented to observers who served 50 years or more as a National Weather Service cooperative observer.
Family Heritage Award. Copeland received the Family Heritage Award, honoring cooperative observing families with 100 or more years of unbroken service, Nov. 29, 2005, only weeks before his passing on Dec. 27, 2005.
The observing duties were passed to Copeland in 1956 from his father, Lawrence.
Cooperative weather observers are citizens throughout the country with an interest in observing and reporting the weather. Copeland was one of more than 11,000 volunteers who record the daily weather related information that forms the backbone of our nation’s climatological data collection network.
Important. Normals, means and extremes for temperature and precipitation in the local area and in some cases river stages are often computed directly from the cooperative observer’s reports.
Reports from cooperative observers such as Copeland are important to the local National Weather Service Forecast Office for the issuance of forecasts, watches, warnings and advisories.