The Weather House
Newman resident Marge Carvalho was bestowed with the "John Campanius Holm Award" (named for one of the first people in colonial America to record weather observations). The award was presented by the National Weather Service in recognition of her many years as a dedicated volunteer weather observer (February 2018). The "Weather House" is pictured behind Mrs. Carvalho.
The City of Newman has measured and reported its daily weather since 1889, a year after its founding. In later years, Richard and Edna Smith manned a weather station from 1959 to 1991. Starting in 1991, Newman's weather was monitored, recorded, and reported by Marge Carvalho who logged high and low temperatures as well as rainfall for each 24 hour period (measurements were taken every day at 5pm).
The small "Weather House" (weather instrument station) is currently installed in an area of the museum's backyard. The station (loaned to the museum by Marge Carvalho's daughter, Amanda) appears to have started its existence in Sacramento and was employed for several decades as the device used by local Newman volunteers to measure the city's meteorological conditions.
