Arlene Cole, the longtime keeper of Newcastle’s weather data, announced her retirement yesterday after six decades of nightly observations for NOAA, beginning on May 13, 1965, when the agency installed a weather station on her Academy Hill Road property.
Since that first entry, Cole logged temperature, precipitation, and wind readings every evening at 5 p.m., also supplying daily summaries to The Lincoln County News and a monthly chart to the National Weather Service.
Her equipment evolved from a hand‑operated outdoor console to a 1980s‑era indoor receiver that still required an exterior thermometer, a setup that became physically taxing for the solitary 90‑year‑old, especially when measuring rainfall and snowfall.
NOAA official John Hayes praised Cole’s 45‑year tenure in a 2010 letter, noting her data’s value for climate studies, commerce, transport, and agriculture; she has earned five awards, including the prestigious Thomas Jefferson Award.
Cole’s meticulous log, kept in pen and paper, has become a rare longitudinal record, enabling direct comparisons between 2026’s dry summer and the 1947 drought she witnessed as a school graduate.
Her station is part of the U.S. Cooperative Observer Program, one of 7,000 volunteer sites nationwide, and NOAA plans to install a replacement by October to preserve the continuity of this invaluable data set.