Klass was in touch with nature and the weather through daily cycling trips through open fields.
“Then you had to ride your bike into the wind again, then into the wind again, then the wind would blow hard again, then it would rain again. The weather played a big part. I don’t think I would have ever become a meteorologist if I hadn’t done that.” I grew up that way, becoming a naturalist and a weather scientist.
You can see thunderstorms coming from far away. “When I was a kid I was terrified of thunder,” says Klass. “We had a remote farm, on a hill, with no lightning rod.”
His parents weren’t afraid. At least they didn’t show it to little Klaas.
“My father always said: The farm has been around for a long time and has never been bombed. Sometimes, when it was raging around, the children would be dragged out of bed at night and everyone would be ready with their clothes on. And father would keep money in his pocket, and if things got bad, everyone could run away.”
At the age of thirteen, Klass started going again. It was a vacation and he was bored. His sister suggested that we measure him again.
“At one point, I went outside with a thermometer to see how warm it was. I wrote it down and never stopped.”
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