Weather Station established in Pittsford

News items from the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in 1895:

April 2, 1895: A Government weather bureau was established and an observation post set up at the Pittsford Academy. Daily weather forecasts would be received from Washington by telegraph between 11 and 12:00 each morning and signals would be displayed regularly from the flagstaff of the Academy building. These signals would be visible from nearly 100 square miles. Professor George W. Gomph was in charge of the weather department.

June 3, 1895: The paper spoke of the fact that the temperature had been in the 90's for several days and on Saturday it was near 100 in the shade.

June 4, 1895: Government Weather signals displayed through May had a better record than in the previous month. In May, 80% of the signals were verified, 30% were partially so and only 8% were not verified.

June 5, 1895: It had continued at from 90 to 100 each day. There was no breeze and the workmen were suffering and all found it almost unendurable.

July 5, 1895: The Weather Bureau information sent to Pittsford was not as accurate as the month before. Only 76 % were verified with 5% partially verified and 19% not verified. The system had a ram gauge in Pittsford, but it received little use during the preceding month since there had been no rain since the 5^th of June.

August 2, 1895: The Weather Bureau forecast had been 84% correct. Also, it was reported that 2.33 inches of rain had fallen which reversed the drought of June.

(Excerpts from Paul Spiegel's works.)