From wind vanes to storm names
Before the internet and TV meteorologists, weather forecasting was the responsibility of the National Weather service. In the old days, the National Weather Service was called the Weather Bureau which got its start just after the Civil War when, according to National Weather Service history, President Ulysses S. Grant ordered the U.S. Signal Corps to record weather observations at all military posts across the country. Today, its satellite and radar, along with a host of scientific equipment; however, in the early days, it was just a thermometer, barometer and wind vane. Temperature, pressure and wind was all we had, and even today, one who keeps their eye on the weather can do a lot with just these three simple instruments.
According to National Weather Service history, in 1891, the government converted the bureau into a civilian agency and it became part of the Department of Agriculture. By 1935, the Weather Bureau collected data twice each day at 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. using Greenwich Mean Time so that all observations would be at the same time, at weather stations across the United States. Along with these stations, the Weather Bureau also received reports from Coast Guard Stations and Pan American Airlines on their flights from Florida to South America. These were helpful in obtaining weather information about developing tropical storms, which sometimes grew into hurricanes. Gradually, the weather forecasts began to improve, although accuracy was still only good for a day or two at best.
The tradition of naming tropical storms, according to NOAA, didn’t begin until World War II when meteorologists in the U.S. Army, Air Force and Navy started naming them after their wives and girlfriends; or women they wanted as their wives or girlfriends; or women who had dumped them. In 1950, the idea of using the military phonetic alphabet was tried — Hurricane Able, Baker, Charlie, etc. Then in 1953, the Weather Bureau released an annual list that returned to women’s names. Hurricane Alice, Betsy and Carol are a few that come to mind. In 1979, amidst the general drive for equal rights, the World Meteorological Organization decreed that the annual list would alternate male and female names and that the names could be recycled every six years unless a storm was particularly noteworthy for its destruction. There will be no future Andrews or Camilles.
Diversity came along in recent years and now with the advent of the Weather Channel, the internet and the TV meteorologists, every winter storm gets a name. Some of this is good and some of it just seems to add to the hype of the daily weather forecast. I suspect that soon we will be naming every thunderstorm and every snowflake. Speaking of snowflakes, it looks like the month of February is forecast to be colder and wetter than normal. Translated this means cold and snowy; however, I don’t think it will be as intense as the Arctic cold in late December and January.
Winter is not over yet.