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BY DAVID HENCH
Blethen Maine Newspapers 08/08/2008

Blethen Maine Newspapers

Art Lester, who for years was the voice of the National Weather Station in Gray, drowned Thursday in Sebago Lake as he swam out to his sailboat off Musson Road.

The 63-year old Lester swam to his 20-foot sailboat, moored about 100 yards off shore. Lester was tending to the boat though officials did not know if the boat had taken on water during recent heavy rains or if there was some other problem he was tending to.

Witnesses told the Maine Warden Service that Lester was swimming back to shore when he went under just before 10 a.m. Sgt. Tim Spahr, of the Maine Warden Service, described the conditions as windy with a mild chop on the water's surface, with a mixture of mist and rain.

Wardens, with the assistance of the Portland Water District security patrol, recovered Lester's body in 15 feet of water at about 11:30 a.m., Spahr said.

Lester lives in Casco near the anchorage and had apparently planned on the swim. He was wearing swimming trunks and a T-shirt.

Lester had worked for the National Weather Service for 37 years, the past 29 years with the National Weather Service in Gray.

"Art was very personable, very folksy. Just a great person to have on staff," said Al Wheeler, meteorologist in charge at the Gray weather station. When members of the media or public would call with questions, Lester was often the one summoned to the telephone.

"Back in the early days when our weather radio recordings were made by staff here, Art was very popular. People would write in that they enjoyed listening to him. We got quite a few complaints when we went to the automated voice" in the late 1990s, Wheeler said.

Lester was a hydro meteorological technician, with an experienced eye for measuring the nuances of Maine's weather, Wheeler said.

He monitored stream and river flows and twice a day launched weather balloons to collect much of the data that the weather service, and by extension all of the state's media outlets, relied on in making forecasts.

"Art, with his long experience here, was certainly well-versed in our local weather and had a very good understanding of local conditions, like the sea breeze, those kind of things," Wheeler said.

Lester was an avid sailor, not only on his 20-foot Polisea. He also went on sailing vacations to the Mediterranean several times, Wheeler said.

Lester was frequently quoted in the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram.

He said of last year's approaching Valentine's Day storm: "If this thing pans out the way we figure, it's going to be big problems for everybody."

In 2005, the intensity of a late-May storm caught the National Weather Service by surprise prompting a swift revision to its forecast.

Lester quipped: "We were playing catch-up. We do that a lot. We amend our forecasts when things go bad."

And on the unpredictability of spring weather in Maine, he said: "Spring is a bad tease. From the end of March to June, when summer starts, it leads you on a lot."

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