AccuWeather is calling for a high of 77 in Terra Alta Thursday, with sunshine and perhaps a passing shower in the afternoon.
This, however, isn’t just another weather report for the mountain town in Preston County.
Because this is the day people will gather at the Arthur H. Wright Funeral Home on Highland Avenue to say goodbye to Charles Trembly, who was known as the “weather guy” in Terra Alta and across the region.
Trembly, who died last week at the age of 87, was an official observer with the National Weather Service for decades. His funeral is 1 p.m. Thursday.
If, say, you were a reporter tasked with writing about the aftermath of a big snowstorm, or a near-tornado, or a deluge of rain that just wouldn’t let up, Trembly was your source.
He could give you history of the big storms and all those other anomalies. Those “What the heck just happened?” weather events from seasons gone by.
The winter of those 20-foot snowdrifts on Evan’s Curve just outside Terra Alta? He could tell you all about it.
That spring when March came in like a lion on a torqued-up snowmobile?
Of course, Trembly was there, and he could trace similar spring calling cards back a century, if you asked him to, for the record.
His dad, Charles Edward Trembly — everybody called him “C.E.” — had amassed 110 years’ worth of weather accounts, in fact, and had become an observer with the weather service in 1948.
The patriarch held that post for two decades, before handing the recording duties off to a local mortician in 1968.
When C.E. died two years later, Charles had been working as a medical technician at the former Vincent Pallotti Hospital in Morgantown.
A dutiful son decided to come home to help care for his mother.
“I quit my job and moved back here,” said Trembly, the younger, who soon found similar work at Preston Memorial Hospital in Kingwood.
And, he also soon found himself keeping on with the Trembly tradition.
“The undertaker talked me into taking the weather job back,” Trembly remembered.
“He said he couldn’t keep up with it because of his schedule.”
C.E.’s son could and did. He was lauded by the NWS for his meticulous record-keeping and timely reports.
Everything in the world
It was just part of the deal for a person interested in science, technology and the natural proceedings of things.
He earned a degree in medical technology from WVU. He was a licensed pilot who would go soaring in his Piper aircraft at every opportunity.
Trembly also couldn’t be more earthbound.
He was devoted to his wife, Bertie, and his kids, Gina and John.
There were grandchildren to dote over — in addition to all those “bonus” kids and grandkids who also enriched his life.
In the end, though, he was synonymous with weather — the occurrence of which Mark Twain supposedly said, “Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it.”
Trembly talked about it, and he also knew the “why” behind West Virginia’s weather.
He knew the state was a pivot-point for ever-changing patterns, because of the literal lay of the land.
There’s mountainous terrain to the east and the south, flat lands in the west and rolling slopes to varying degree across the north-central climes.
Which is why, he said, it could be 15 degrees on one day, then 50 degrees the next.
Then, there’s his hometown of Terra Alta, which sits nearly 2,600 feet above sea level. That means snow in the winter — and more snow in the winter.
On Feb. 17, 2014, as Trembly was recounting the aftermath of still yet another Terra Alta coating, he let a little lyricism sneak in, as he talked to The Dominion Post about what just happened, and what was going to happen.
Another spate was forthcoming and Trembly was happily trudging through 24 inches of Terra Alta precipitation while talking on his cell phone. He had a date with a snow blower that afternoon.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said. “I’m watching the high cirrus clouds coming in before the storm.”
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