by Sarah Miley
STAFF WRITER
At 5 p.m. every day, Ned Bevan checks thermometers and a rain gauge in a backyard off Main Street. He opens a white box perched above the ground and checks alcohol thermometers for the high and low temperatures and records them. If any precipitation or snow has fallen, he records that too in a little notebook that is filled with measurements and numbers from the past weeks.
For more than 80 years, a member of the Bevan family has been recording Tooele's weather. Ned, as well as his predecessors before him, is a cooperative weather observer for the National Weather Service. More than 11,000 volunteers nationwide are part of the Cooperative Weather Observer Program, which began in 1890 and involves volunteers gathering and reporting weather data on a daily basis.
Tooele has one of the longest running weather stations in the state. Weather records were first recorded in Tooele as early as 1896 and have been kept on a daily basis since 1897.
The Bevan family legacy began in 1924 when Ned's grandfather Amos Bevan was asked to be an observer for the National Weather Service. Even before that time, another family member, Amos' brother John A. Bevan, was a weather observer for several years.
In 1924, Amos -- who served in various capacities throughout his lifetime including as a city councilman and county commissioner -- moved the weather station from Newtown to 139 S. Main St. Ned's father Burdett was 12 years old at the time.
"My dad said he could remember going with his dad to get it [the weather station] in a horse and wagon," Ned said.
It has remained at that location off of Main Street -- despite being moved about 100 feet away from the house -- since that time. Before being moved in 1924, the weather station had several locations, including one near the post office in the downtown area.
When Amos died in 1948, Burdett continued as a weather observer for 46 years until his death in 1994. Ned and his mother Anna took over the weather station together until her death in 2005. Since then, the responsibility has been with Ned.
"It's kind of a family thing," he said. "If my dad wasn't home, my mother did the weather every night. It's just something you do."
Ned, 58, said he has continued on with the tradition because it was expected and he knows how to do it.
"They want people to be reliable and want people to do it every day," he said.
When Ned is out of town, a friend takes care of it for him.
It typically takes Ned about 20 minutes a day to do the weather, which includes traveling from his Utah Avenue home. He retired a few years ago after working nearly 35 years for the local phone company and recording the weather, as well as tending to his farm where he has cows, chickens, sheep, horses, but mostly alfalfa, keeps him busy.
"I stay busy working on the farm and a few other things," he said. "I don't have a hard time finding things to do."
At the recording station, along with the two alcohol thermometers inside the cotton region shelter -- the vented box they are kept in -- is a mercury thermometer for backup. Ned measures precipitation and snowfall and records it in a notebook. If there is no measurable precipitation, it is recorded as a trace. He sends a monthly report to the district office in Elko where they analyze the data. It becomes an official record after 30 days. The National Weather Service inspects the shelter quarterly and checks the instruments.
Inside the notebook where the weather is recorded, is also a place for comments. Back in the smelting days are comments about the smelter smoke and many smoky days. In 1910, there is a note about an earthquake that occurred May 22 at 7:28 a.m. It was recorded that it did no damage. In 1911, there is a comment regarding a "small comet in North visible at 2 a.m." Another talks about when lightning struck Mrs. Carmack's little log house, it caught fire, but was put out without much damage.
"If there's something out of the ordinary, I write it down," Ned said. In the 1980s, he saw a water spout on the Great Salt and watched it for about two minutes before it disappeared. When 17 power poles blew over in a major storm in January, Ned made a comment about the high winds.
People have also had strange requests over the years in regards to the weather. Some time ago, Ned said attorneys as well as someone from the Sheriff's Office called to know what time it snowed on a particular day because it had to do with a murder that had been committed near Mercur.
Ned has original weather records that go back to 1901, as well as copies of records that go back to when records were first kept. He is only aware of one time since 1924 that the weather hasn't been recorded, when his dad just couldn't do it one day.
After recording so many years of weather and looking over so many records, Ned has come to see some patterns, as well as some records, in Tooele's weather.
On April 1, 1908, the low temperature was 20 and the high was 42, which is pretty close to the weather 100 years later on April 1, 2008, when the low was 22 and the high was 47.
"You talk about climate change, and there's definitely some change, but whether or not that's climate change or just a cycle I haven't figured that out yet," Ned said.
While Ned said Tooele's climate is typically pretty good -- despite the high winds from the south that often blow in -- there have been some extremes in the weather.
On March 27, 1949, more than 100 inches of snow fell in Tooele, which was the most snow that fell in a 24-hour period. Ned's father recorded the weather at that time.
"It was at least 100 inches," Ned said, "But there wasn't anything long enough to measure it, so it's more."
In contrast, a few summers ago, there was one day that Tooele was hotter than St. George at around 107 degrees. And Memorial Day 2005 was a record-setter as nearly 4 inches of precipitation fell.
Monitoring the weather has contributed to Ned's awareness of living in a desert. He said his favorite part about recording the weather is when Tooele gets a really wet year.
"I've found April and May are essential months," he said. "If we get a wet April and May, we usually get through the summer all right."
Ned said his motivation to keep doing the daily task of recording the weather is not only because it's a family tradition, but because he firmly believes in volunteerism.
"This is just a little thing, but all the information added up makes a difference," he said. "People ought to return something."
The home where the recording station is located has seen six generations of Bevans. Ned's great-grandfather, grandfather, father, himself, daughter Amanda and grandchild have all lived in that home at one time or another. The home is currently being rented.
Ned hopes that the weather tradition will continue on in the Bevan family. He has four daughters, Sharol, Amanda, Katie and Stephanie, and one son, Patrick, who is a freshman at Tooele High School.
"It'd be nice if he'd continue on with it, but you just don't know if he'll stay around," Ned said.
He said as Tooele continues to grow, it gets harder to keep up with traditions. Ned's wife Shauna was the fourth generation to work at a family floral shop in Tooele. Her grandfather started Lawrence Floral in 1924 and the property was just recently sold a few years ago.
"The bigger we get the more you lose some of these traditions," Ned said, "but it's kind of neat if you can keep them."
And just like other family names in the county are associated with certain things, perhaps the Bevan family name is too.
"I guess maybe the Bevans are synonymous with weather," he said.
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