Minnesota Assistant State Climatologist Pete Boulay has been recognized by the National Weather Service for serving as a cooperative weather observer at the University of Minnesota St. Paul weather station for the past twenty years.
"The National Weather Service has been proud to partner with the University of Minnesota and the Minnesota DNR on the COOP weather station since 1961," according to a social media post.
The research weather station is on the St. Paul campus, just south of Larpenteur Ave. Boulay makes his observations around 8 AM. "I try to get out there each time it rains, at least several times a week," says Boulay. "There’s been some interesting times... Most of the time though it’s very peaceful in the morning out there with birds flitting around and the occasional gopher," he continues. The daily data that Boulay records is available to view and download on the DNR website.
Boulay was trained by Dave Ruschy, an alumnus and former SWAC staff member, when he began making observations. "[Ruschy] showed me the ropes. I was the back up or assistant at the weather station until taking over as main observer from Dave in 2009. Dave still does dabble with the data from the weather station using Lotus spreadsheets," Boulay recalls.
Boulay received kind words from his colleagues in the Minnesota State Climatology Office via a Facebook post: "Nobody exemplifies walking the walk as a climatologist like Pete Boulay, who for over 20 years now has taken observations at our station in driving rains, floods, snow up to his knees, -50 F wind chills, and a handful of pretty decent days too. 🙂 Congrats, Pete, and thanks for your continued service to our field!"