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Community Corner

Moraga's Weather Man Knows Which Way the Wind Blows

Charles Beckwith keeps a weather eye trained on the heavens and collects the data meteorologists depend on.

Charles Beckwith knows the highs and lows of Moraga.

We’re not talking SAT scores or economic profile, we’re talking degrees Fahrenheit and inches of rainfall.

The officially designated weather conditions reporter has been keeping tabs on the town’s daily climatological shifts for the past 25 years.

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“It started when I called Channel 4 and talked to a gentleman there about giving him the weather,” Beckwith said during a recent visit, showing off his meticulous charts and admittedly low-tech equipment.

In his back yard, a three-needle thermometer registers the highs and lows for each 24-hour period and a simple plastic cylinder, held fast with a clothespin, gathers the latest rainfall data.

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Beckwith reported to the television station for several years, before turning it over to another man in Orinda.

Weather errors spotted in the Contra Costa Times newspaper set his blood boiling, he said, and he offered to continue his reporting.

Every day at 4 p.m., Beckwith dials an 800 number, reaching a person or an answering machine in Madison, Wisc. The Midwest national weather center collects reports from across the country and dispenses weather data to news publications and reporting stations in each location.

Beckwith says he enjoys the task, but grumbles about the Times' weather page.

“Out of the clear blue sky, they reduced the space for comparison to earlier years,” he says, alarm rising in his voice. “I sent them a letter saying, ‘I resent that you’ve done this! Your bread-and-butter readership is right here in central Contra Costa County, not in Stockton!’ ”

He still has the response he received, in 2008, from John Armstrong, the president and publisher of the paper.

“Changes and improvements in our weather report will be unveiled shortly,” the letter reads.

Beckwith considers it a low point in weather history that the full page he once enjoyed is a thing of the past.

But weather isn't the only thing on this Moragan's mind. Family and volunteer work, the high points of Beckwith’s day, bring the smile back to his face after reading the much-maligned Times letter for the hundredth time.

Inez, his wife of nearly 60 years, collects and submits the weather stats when he is out of town. His two adult children and five grandchildren also provide deep satisfaction.  And his volunteer work for John Muir’s thrift shop brings out the numbers guy in Beckwith; he proudly reports that the shop has raised more than $4 million over the past 50 years.

He won’t predict what tomorrow's weather will be. All he knows for sure is that there will be highs and lows, and he'll be there to collect the data — rain or shine.

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