Today there are thousands of unpaid volunteers all over the United States, recording the weather every single day. They check temperature and rainfall without fail and report it carefully to their appropriate centers. They can be housewives, nursery owners, farmers, store clerks, firemen, or mechanics — in other words they can be just about anyone. Each observer shares a desire to help us learn more about the weather and its impact on our lives.
As one of thousands of weather observers one’s name might get lost, like a small fish in a big pond. An old newspaper article caught my attention recently concerning a weather observer, a Catholic layman named Brother Gerard Schneider. He gained notoriety and became recognized as Florida’s oldest volunteer weatherman. He sent official reports to the Weather Bureau from 1902-1952, giving him the distinction of having the longest record of continuous service — 50 years. And he did it all from a simple weather workstation on the campus of St Leo University, near Dade City Florida.
Gerard Schneider was born August 10, 1865, in Bavaria, Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1885 and attended Pennsylvania’s St. Vincent’s Abbey in the town of Latrobe, not far from Pittsburgh. St. Vincent’s was the first Benedictine monastery in North America (established in 1846), and was founded by a German-born Benedictine monk named Boniface Wimmer…