Weather the Storms

My dad, Peter Carl Jaeger, loved weather. He originally planned to become a meteorologist, but it required him to pass German and despite his heritage, the language was too much of a struggle. Weather was his hobby...no, his passion, his whole life. My parents built their house on Stormville Mountain, in Stormville, NY, so named for the iron ore in the mountain that attracted the most vicious thunderstorms.

Dad got his first piece of meteorological equipment in high school in 1959 and he built a mini weather station, behind our house. He was a member of the NY radio station, WOR and WHUD Weather Watchers and Storm Spotters, who would call in every morning to give a report. His NY weather station was an official part of the NOAA weather data service in Stormville. He started a company called "Eye on the Storm" that provided expert testimony for legal proceedings. He received an award for Ten Years of Service to the US Government Weather Observatory Division. He loved data and if you told him the year you were born, he could tell you what major weather event occurred that year. Long before the internet, he was the one I went to for historical information, as well as the daily "what to wear" weather forecast.

Not only did he love the statistics, which were measured and reliable, he delighted in the unpredictability too. He always hoped that we'd get even more snow than was in the forecast.

As a kid, whenever angry black clouds were heading our way, my dad would be standing on our small front porch, watching the storm roll in, like a sentinel. Lightning and loud thunder crashes didn't send us hiding under the covers, we'd peer out the window behind him, in awe.

My father's passion for the weather inspired me to start writing. Like him, I enjoy order and patterns, but there is a lot in this life that we cannot control, like the weather. My plan is to delight in the unexpected and find where that takes me.

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"Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord. Fathers do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged." - Colossians 3:20-21