David Sterling Salmon

David was born in San Antonio, Texas on September 25, 1951. He was preceded in death by his parents, Hilda Bertha Adela Salmon-Eckoff and Alfred Norman Salmon. David spent his school years in Sedalia, Missouri and graduated from college at Warrensburg, Missouri where he met his wife, Yvonne Marie Salmon-Banister. David and Yvonne were married in 19' David and Yvonne moved to Belton, Missouri in 1977. David and Yvonne had one child in 1979, Douglas Grant Salmon.

David initially used his degree in geography to work as an aerial mapping photographer. Subsequently, he worked for Knight-Ridder Financial News, A.K.A Commodity News Service, collecting and evaluating weather data as it affected world-wide crops and consumption of energy.

While at KFR/CNS, David developed several tools for the evaluation and application of weather information including a world-wide crop calendar that ran on KFR’s news wires for several seasons and was eventually published in the “1986 Commodity Yearbook”. He developed an index to track week-to-week changes in U.S. crop conditions, including a national weighting scheme that left USDA scrambling… David also started a weekly calculation to objectively project temperature and precipitation data into an index of soil conditions—general moisture, temperature, fieldwork days, runoff, etc. Although a similar tool had long existed in the hands of the National Weather Service, for the U.S., David’s calculations for around the world may well have been the first of that extent in near real time. It was used not only by commodity analysts, but also by a couple of government agencies for their evaluations.

In 1995, David started his own weather consultation service, specializing in energy fuel consumption, but continuing to in the crop weather. David’s energy product was carried for many years on the Bloomberg News system. David reformulated his soil model to step daily (U.S. only though), and to extend out to a daily forecast days through day-7. Besides crop conditions, several “weather” insights could be revealed in this expanded evaluation method.

David became associated with the Belton Emergency Management in the late 1970’s. In that role, he conducted training for many surrounding weather spotter groups, and often orchestrated Belton’s weather spotter deployments. In 1999, David assumed the directorship of the Belton Emergency Management and became an active participant in Kansas City’s regional efforts. A few ripples from that regional participation eventually showed up at the national level. David subsequently authored and had published a book, (“Tornado Watch”) of instruction on the weather conditions leading to severe conditions and the encouragement for communities to fully utilize the Incident Command System to conduct their weather emergencies.

More fun facts: David participated in the community for his son’s sports and other extra-curricular school activities. He served a three-year term on the Belton School Board. He volunteered for most of a school year installing and maintaining the earliest computers at the high school. He also participated for many years in the school district’s student mentoring program.

David was long-active at the Lord of Love Lutheran Church, including holding several offices. He also held an office or two in the local chapter of the Kansas City American Meteorological Society where he also had a long association. David was a 25-year plus member of the Belton Host Lions Club, where again he held several offices. And, he had a sadly undocumented, yet important role in the production of the movie, “Leap of Faith”, starring Steve Martin and Debra Winger. The movie starts out with a climate and weather backdrop (drought), but then it rains, and everybody lives happily ever after.