If rain or snow falls in North Texas or the area hits triple-digit heat, it’s not official unless it was observed at DFW International Airport.
On the southeast side of the airport, off of runway 17C, the National Weather Service has its official climate site, where the weather service is able to observe temperatures, dew points, wind speeds and direction, and measure precipitation.
A Dallas Morning News reader wanted to know: Why are official weather records compiled at DFW Airport? So they asked Curious Texas to find out more.
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The weather service’s official climate site wasn’t always at DFW Airport. When the Fort Worth Weather Bureau opened in September 1898, weather records were taken at the bureau’s office in downtown Fort Worth. The Weather Bureau, which is known today as the National Weather Service, later opened another office in downtown Dallas in October 1913, creating two official sites in North Texas for weather records.
In 1931, the Dallas office began recording upper air observations at Love Field Airport. In 1940, the Fort Worth office began taking records at then-named Meacham Field Airport, according to National Weather Service history. Offices and observation sites bounced around a bit for a few years, but when DFW Airport opened in 1974, the National Weather Service combined its North Texas operations into one site at the airport.
Today there is no longer a Dallas office, and the National Weather Service’s North Texas branch operates out of north Fort Worth — but observations are still taken at DFW. Why?
Jason Godwin, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said one of the main reasons is because the airport is centrally located between Dallas and Fort Worth, and “it made it an ideal location” to observe official weather.
The weather service is able to maintain quality control at DFW Airport, also making the site an ideal location, Godwin said. The climate site is not accessible to public, so no one can alter any measured rainfall or adjust the instruments.
Unless someone from the National Weather Service is checking in at the site, no one else has access or permission to visit the rain gauge and weather tools.
The devices at the site also help maintain quality control, Godwin said. The rain gauge, for example, isn’t just a beaker waiting for rain to fall inside. It’s a large instrument with metal flaps in the shape of triangles that help prevent winds or turbulence from planes from blowing rain out of the gauge, according to Godwin.
Meteorologists from the weather office in Fort Worth can remotely check in to the climate site at the airport at any moment during the day to see how hot or cold it is outside, or how much rain has fallen, Godwin said.
The weather service also gets official measurements all over North Texas from Waco to Wills Point, but the official readings for Dallas-Fort Worth come from the airport.
“If we say we hit 100-degrees, we mean it happened at DFW,” Godwin said.
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