Page Title

Blind man leads Skywarn

By: Ed Kacik, Herald staff

NEWINGTON - Although Roger Jeanfaivre has always had trouble seeing, he remembers being fascinated with lightning and weather when he was growing up. His interest in weather continued even after he lost sight completely at the age of 24. While attending Oak Hill School for the Blind in Hartford, Jeanfaivre became interested in ham radio. After getting his license to operate one, Jeanfaivre would broadcast forecasts he made up.

"People used to think that I worked for the [National Weather Service]," Jeanfaivre said. Now he does.

People turn to the weather service for information when severe weather strikes. To make sure its information is right, the National Weather Service turns to an organization of amateurs called Skywarn.

"Skywarn provides a very valuable service to the NWS," said Betsey Doane, state section manager for the American Radio Relay League. "We can communicate quickly and directly and provide rapid response to information throughout the state."

Skywarn is made up of independent ham radio operators who are also trained weather spotters. They report wind gusts, hail size, rainfall and cloud formations that signal severe weather. "Spotters are the people outside during the day.

Their weather tools are their ears and their eyes," Jeanfaivre said. "The NWS radar is a few thousand feet up, so they can't see what is happening on the ground."

In 1994, Jeanfaivre became the state Skywarn coordinator and kept responsibility for Hartford and Tolland counties in a 2002 reorganization.

He enjoys Skywarn because it allows him to blend two of his favorite hobbies, weather and ham radio, devices that work even when other forms of communication - computers and telephones or cell phones - do not.

-- (continued next page)

Roger Jeanfaivre, regional coordinator of Skywarn for Hartford and Tolland counties, works on his home computer that receives weather alert information from a nearby weather station on Thursday. He is 100 percent legally blind and transmits the information on ham radios. --- Rob Beecher/The Herald