Flight Training - February 2015 - 44

WEATHER

By Jack Williams
PRESIDENT ULYSSES S. GRANT
authorized the Secretary of War to
establish a national weather service
on February 9, 1870.

WEATHER GUESSERS

NEW TECHNOLOGY TO GIVE PILOTS BETTER FORECASTS

W

orld War II aviators often referred to the meteorologists who produced
their mission forecasts as "weather guessers." (The term is still around.) Yet,
given how much less meteorologists knew then about the details of how the
weather works than they do now-and despite the lack of technologies that

we take for granted such as weather satellites,
weather radars, and high-speed computers-World
War II weather guessers did well enough for the hundreds of successful bomber and fighter missions that
helped win the war to reach their targets.
The rockets that put satellites into space, radar
(including weather radar), and high-speed computers
began as World War II technologies. Many of these
weather guessers returned to civilian life in 1945
after having completed college-level cram courses
at places such as the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, the University of Chicago, or Cal Tech,
and with practical experience forecasting around
the globe. This generation of meteorologists led the

44 /

FLIGHTTRAINING.AOPA.ORG

stunning growth in meteorological technology and
knowledge of the last half of the twentieth century.
ADVANCES IN FORECASTING. On October 23,
2012, European forecasters using a state-of-the-art
computer model predicted that Sandy-a tropical storm south of Jamaica with winds less than 74
mph-would be a hurricane eight days later off the
U.S. East Coast, and make an unusual turn to hit New
Jersey and New York. It came ashore as forecast
and merged with an extratropical cyclone moving in
from the west to create Super Storm Sandy.
Predictions of the timing, track, and strength of
winter storms have improved, and they very rarely



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Flight Training - February 2015

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Flight Training - February 2015

Contents
Flight Training - February 2015 - Cover1
Flight Training - February 2015 - Cover2
Flight Training - February 2015 - Contents
Flight Training - February 2015 - 2
Flight Training - February 2015 - 3
Flight Training - February 2015 - 4
Flight Training - February 2015 - 5
Flight Training - February 2015 - 6
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Flight Training - February 2015 - Cover3
Flight Training - February 2015 - Cover4
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