Ledyard's Own Weatherman Having Busy Year

Perhaps the busiest man in Ledyard this winter is Terry Henkle of Gales Ferry. The retired Navy oceanographer and meteorologist provides up-to-date weather forecasts to school superintendents in Ledyard, Groton, New London, Stonington and Berlin, as well as nine school principals through the education cooperative LEARN. He also gives forecasts to the mayor and public works director in Ledyard, among others.

Henkle does not have a weather lab. He gets all his information on the Internet, accessing specialized weather sites from the National Weather Service that are available to the public, but not well known. He looks at weather trends and different models and makes “common sense” decisions on what to recommend.

School officials then take his analysis, which he tries to get to them very early in the morning, and make their final decision on whether to postpone or cancel school openings for a given day.

Navy career

Henkle got started in this endeavor in a round-about way.  He joined the Navy in 1979 and was a rescue swimmer. He also flew on helicopters. After four or five years, he said, “I was transferred to a Hunter Plane, a P30 Orion, which is used to drop listening devices into the ocean to find submarines underwater.” He later attended school in Florida, where he got an associate degree in math and science.       

When the first Gulf War broke out, he was assigned to a carrier for combat research and rescue missions.  After nine months on the carrier, Henkle went back to school and got his bachelors degree at Old Dominion University in Virginia, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in biology with a minor in oceanography. This led to working in both fields.

From 1993-’97, he said, “I served in Rota, Spain, on a Mobile Environmental Team setting up weather stations on the go, in places like Somalia, Rwanda, Uganda, Sarijevo and Tulva.”

He was then sent to the Training Command for Special Warfare in Europe, where he became the meteorologist. As part of his duties, he traveled throughout Africa and Europe and spent time in Somalia. He eventually arrived at U.S. Naval Sub Base in Groton, and this is when he started his forecasting in this area.

Henkle began by providing weather data to the Sub School. As a joke, he would send it to his wife-to-be, Claudia, who was a teacher in Ledyard. He eventually met Ledyard  Superintendent Michael Graner, who asked if he could be included on the weather list.

At the time, Henkle was attending Sacred Heart University, so that school was added to his weather list. When later he took a job as a teacher at Putnam High School, they were added to the list, too.

Other superintendents asked to be included. And when Henkle finally took a teaching position in Groton, that school system also was added.

Henkle does not tell the superintendents when to delay or close school. He said he looks at all the available data and does an analysis on what it means. He starts looking at weather reports and patterns very early in the day, sometimes at early as 4 a.m. Then he reports to the various schools.

Henkle also makes recommendations on such things as removing ice from parking lots, building roofs, etc. For example, he points out that if it is raining and the ground is frozen, that is “not a good thing” as the rain will turn to ice. 

Henkle says it’s all about weather patterns, looking at various radar and satellite models and trying to make sense out of it. With the winter we’ve had so far, Ledyard’s own weatherman has been kept extremely busy!