New weather office dedicated

CARIBOU – Every cloud has a silver lining, as the dedication Tuesday of the new $2.8 million National Weather Service office proved.

Eight years ago, the National Weather Service decided to close the two-person weather observation office in Caribou, which would have forced the region to rely on weather forecasts from the Gray office.

It wasn’t a good decision, according to many people in Aroostook County.

Paul R. Powers of Caribou headed a drive to overturn the decision and helped establish the Select Committee for the Preservation of Weather Facilities at Caribou, which not only overturned the decision, but also saw to the installation of a full weather forecasting office.

In 1998, money was secured from the federal government and the construction of the state-of-the-art weather forecasting office was planned. Ground was broken on June 1, 2001, and by the end of this month, personnel will move into the new structure located at the apex of two Caribou Municipal Airport runways.

“I am very, very excited,” Powers said before the start of the ceremony Tuesday. “Eight years ago, we never dreamed that a facility like this would be constructed.

“The decision had been made to close the small facility we had,” he said. “We found data to prove to them that they were wrong to close the facility.”

Powers said he never dreamed back then that not only would the decision to close the small facility be overturned, but also that a new service facility would include a full weather forecasting office staffed by 22 people instead of the original three.

The 8,000-square-foot facility, located off North Main Street, replaces a 2,000-square-foot building.

“It’s probably the nicest forecasting station, the most up-to-date, that there is in the country,” Hendricus Lulofs, warning coordination meteorologist at the station, said Tuesday.

“It will be a wonderful facility to work in,” said Larry Gabric, meteorologist in charge.

The facility was lauded as one that raises the architectural bar on weather offices. It was said to be the “most advanced facility in the U.S.”

The office includes GPS tracking, enhanced technologies to allow earlier and more reliable tracking of weather conditions with every aspect optimized.

The building was constructed with energy efficiency in mind and with the use of recycled materials wherever possible. The building is heated and cooled with a geoexchange system that uses an environmentally friendly antifreeze-water solution as a heat exchanger. The solution is held in underground wells several hundred feet deep and is pumped into the building when needed.

The National Weather Service, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, has had a weather office at Caribou since 1937. It operated in several temporary offices until a weather office building was constructed in 1967 at the Caribou airport.

Not only does the office provide weather services for all of northern Maine, it also gives information for the part of Maine north of Gray and to New Brunswick and Quebec.

Dean P. Gulezian, NWS Eastern Region director, pointed out, “It was a lot of local friends who made this happen.”

“The staff here brings caring and commitment to the area,” said Scott B. Gudes, deputy undersecretary of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Now they also have the tools to make it happen.”

In a letter read by aide Kenneth White, U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe said: “Not only does a full forecasting office fill a crucial gap in National Weather Service’s forecasting capacity … it also helps us make more sense out of the Aroostook County’s sometimes severe and always changing weather conditions.

“Any Aroostook County farmer can tell you current weather conditions are crucial to making sound farming decisions,” the senator noted.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, who attended the dedication ceremony, commented: “Were it not for the dedication and hard work [of the citizens committee], we would not be here today celebrating the completion of this new facility.

“What an accomplishment – not only did we save the weather station from being closed, but we also upgraded it to a forecast office,” Collins said.