"The Morning Call Inc., Copyright 2002"
Date: THURSDAY, March 12, 1987
VOLUNTEER RECORDS DETAILED INFORMATION ABOUT L.V. WEATHER
by SHEILA FISHER, The Morning Call
''Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it,'' Mark Twain wrote. He never met Gini Giannetta.
While this Moore Township resident doesn't actually change the weather, as a volunteer certified weather observer she spends a good deal of time reacting to it. It's her job to measure and record weather patterns.
The job seems to have fallen naturally to Gini whose husband Charles is a meteorologist for the National Weather Service at the Allentown-Bethlehem-E aston Airport.
Giannetta said that her husband, looking toward retirement, built a professional weather station in their back yard, but didn't have time to take official readings. So he suggested that she do it.
''I've been reading every pamphlet from the weather service that he's come home with all those years,'' she explained. ''I'd ask Charlie, 'What's the weather going to be?' and he'd say, 'Put the weather radio on.' So, I figured that I'm always checking the temperatures of the day. I might as well do it officially.''
So, every day, she records the precipitation and the maximum and minimum temperatures using thermometers, an eight-inch rain gauge and a gauge which weighs and charts precipitation. She says she takes readings whenever she passes, even at midnight. During the winter she has to melt the snow in the rain gauge before she can measure it. ''One inch of rain is equal to 10 inches of snow,'' she said.
The information she gathers is sent to the eastern Pennsylvania hydrologist in Philadelphia and from there to a climatologist in Ashville, N.C., to be cataloged. The records are used for research, by farmers, the state Department of Environmental Resources, contractors and construction workers among others.
Giannetta has been an official cooperative observer, certified by the U.S. Department of Commerce, since May. She said there are two other cooperative observers, one in Carbon County, the other in Bucks. Observers, she said, are not the same as spotters who telephone the weather service if they see severe weather.
She gets some help with her job from her husband and her grown children. Her husband, she said, lets her know if there's a front coming or a drastic weather shift. Her children take readings for her if she has to be away.
The Giannetta home is on a hill five miles south of the Blue Mountain and a good thousand feet above sea level, Giannetta explained. The airport, she said, is just about 300 feet above sea level. ''I notice that in the summer we usually get more rain (here) than at the airport,'' she said, adding that it could be due to the elevation. ''A lot of the storms run along the edge of our mountain.''
Giannetta said there's a big difference between Lehigh Valley weather and the weather in Scranton, just 65 miles away. Sometimes 10 degrees. ''Even between here and Philadelphia there's often a very large difference in temperature.'' From her location, if she awakes and it's 60 degrees, at the airport it could be 55 or 65 degrees, she said.
She predicts weather for herself and friends and finds that she's more accurate than the weather service. Many times her predictions differ from those of her husband, she said. Her predictions are based on her weather measurements and on weather radar, plus instinct. She's learnedsince childhood to be responsive to weather and said its something you have to have instilled in you. Raised on Long Island, N.Y., where the winds and storms whip across the island, she learned to watch the weather.
Her mother used to teach her weather folklore. She was taught to watch the way leaves turn in the wind. ''If you can see the underside of them and the clouds rolling, you know there is a storm on the way.''
Also, she said, when birds line up on utility lines, bad weather is on the way. She said she can actually detect a storm by the odor of the ozone.
The Giannettas have lived in the Lehigh Valley since the fall of 1971 and she finds the weather here perfect. ''You get the seasons, but not severely,'' she said, and she's had a lot of comparisons. Her husband started his work 30 years ago at the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C., where they lived for five years. The humidity there bothered her. ''If it was 100 degrees out, the humidity was 100,'' she remarked. They sought a transfer further north and chose Buffalo, where they lived for 10 years. ''Talk about snow,'' says Giannetta. ''It used to be up to the overhang.''
Understandably, by comparison, she considers this a mild winter. January's recorded low was zero degrees on the 24th and 28th and its high was 47 on the 15th. She said we had less snow in January than we should have, adding that people have been able to get around. As of Feb. 24, she said, the Lehigh Valley had about 33 inches of snow, which is normal for the winter. Although, she said, she doesn't like to predict too far ahead, she ventured a guess, speaking at the end of February, that we would be due for another major snowstorm and perhaps a few small ones before winter's end.
''Last year, we didn't have many days of straight sub-zero weather,'' she commented, ''which kills the insects underground.'' The summer of '86 consequently was full of insects, proving her thinking. She said she hopes for a run of sub-zero weather and looks for the one last heavy picturesque snowfall that beckons the beginning of spring.
What's a perfect day? Giannetta said, ''The farmers want it to rain. The skiers want it to snow. Everybody has a weather wish. My idea of perfection is a clear, sunny day when the humidity is not too high or low.''
Giannetta said she has other hobbies, preferring those that are outdoors. She gardens, grows pine seedlings, fishes and enjoys archery. When she must stay indoors, she paints with oil, decorates her windows for holidays and studies Indian culture and nutrition. She also sings in the choir of Sacred Heart Church in Bath.
Of weather observation, she said, ''It's fun and it's something I always did. And nowthat records are kept and it's all official it makes it nice, too.''
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"WEATHER BY GIANNETTA"