A duty to faith and prairie

COTTONWOOD — When Jesus admonished some religious leaders of his day that they could read the weather indicators “but cannot discern the signs of the times,” he apparently was not talking about Sister Placida Wemhoff, of the Monastery of St. Gertrude.

Wemhoff, 79, has been reading the weather and the signs of the times for most of her life. Recently, she won the 2021 Holm Award for more than 45 years of contributions to the Cooperative Observer Program of the National Weather Service.

“Sister Placida’s 45 years of weather observing provides a foundation of consistently measured data, which is essential to the climate record for the local community, the National Weather Service and our nation,” said Bruce Bauck, a meteorologist from Missoula, Mont.

Since 1976, Wemhoff has been reporting daily temperature, precipitation and snowfall readings to the National Weather Service from a Fischer Porter rain gauge. Wemhoff was praised as “among the best in the country” for providing “accurate, detailed and reliable data” on the Camas Prairie.

The National Weather Service’s Cooperative Observer Program has provided scientists and researchers with vital observational data for more than a century. Today, more than 10,000 volunteer observers participate in the nationwide program to provide daily weather observations on temperature, precipitation, snowfall and other hydrological or meteorological data such as evaporation or soil temperature. The U.S. Congress recognized the value of the COOP program and its observers by authorizing improvements to the program through the National Integrated Drought Information System Reauthorization Act of 2018

Wemhoff, a Camas Prairie native, along with her cousin, Sister Carol Ann Wassmuth, entered St. Gertrude’s convent at the age of 13 and have been Benedictine sisters ever since.

Wemhoff spent 30 years teaching mostly seventh and eight graders in southern Idaho and Cottonwood before returning to the monastery, where she is now head of building maintenance.

It wasn’t until she was asked by the late Sister Connie Sonnen, who at that time was in charge of reading the weather station, to help out that Wemhoff got involved in tracking the daily elements.

“Well, Sister Connie bribed me,” she said. “You know, when it was nasty out or snowy (she said), ‘If you go read the weather, I’ll give you a candy bar.’ And me, I’ll do anything for a candy bar.”

Eventually reading the weather station became Wemhoff’s full-time responsibility.

Using instruments supplied and maintained by the weather service, Wemhoff keeps track of daily high and low temperatures and precipitation. Her equipment does not include wind speed indicators but when she “eyeballs” the tall pines on the hill behind the monastery swaying back and forth significantly she reports that to Missoula and meteorologists there can estimate wind speed.

Although her role as a weather observer isn’t strictly a spiritual practice, there is an element of spirituality in her work, she said.

“Well, the way they’re explaining it to me, the information that I am collecting is going to help to do something about the global warming,” Wemhoff said. “To get the statistics to (gauge) global warming. That is definitely part of our Benedictine charism — to take care of the land.”

Incidentally, Wemhoff’s cousin, Sister Carol Ann, was named Idaho Tree Farmer of the Year in 2001 by the Idaho Department of Lands for her work managing the monastery’s small forest. So both cousins have shared in the Monastery’s concerns for the environment.

Over the years, Wemhoff has noted the weather on the Camas Prairie has changed in significant ways.

“There’s less rain,” she said. “When I started doing it, keeping track, we used to get an average of 24 inches of moisture a year, counting snow and rain and hail. Now we’re lucky if we get 12 (inches) or more.”

Annual temperatures, she added, have become more erratic.

“April, May used to be our spring rains. But any more, the temperature goes up and down. We might be 80 (degrees) one day and 30 the next. Sunshine one day and snow the next. It’s a very up-and-down thing,” she said “I don’t know that I’ve come up with a pattern but it definitely is changing.”

Wemhoff makes her daily observations at 5:30 p.m. every day following the sisters’ evening prayers. She notes the data in a notebook and hangs it in her office where the information is available to all.

Once a month, she collects her records and sends a copy to the weather headquarters in Missoula.

Eventually the paper-and-pencil method she has used all these years will be replaced by modern technology so she will no longer have to go outside in the rain and snow to collect information to feed to the experts.

Even so, there will always be an element of surprise when it comes to predicting the weather, no matter how precise weather observers are in their surveillance.

“Weather is the only job,” Wemhoff said, “where you can be wrong 90 percent of the time and still not get fired.”

Hedberg may be contacted at kathyhedberg@gmail.com or (208) 983-2326.