The Regency Library
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Topic: U.S. Before 1900/Weather Forecasting Excerpt reprinted from: Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital, as a Woman Sees Them by Mary Clemmer Ames (1873) [This piece gives the basic history of the National Weather Service and how it performed its service in the beginning. It also gives a hint to those who would search for old weather records for years after 1871 where to find them.] There is no theme, not excepting marriage, birth and death, that is more absorbing than "the weather." It has made and unmade kingdoms, it has brought triumph in battle, and terrible defeat, it has brought woe and death; but that was before the day of "Old Probabilities," or the Weather Bureau. It is your own fault now, if your wedding-day is wet and gloomy, or if the rain pours into the open grave of the best-beloved. If you follow the weather report, you will know days before what the weather, in all probability will be, and the report seldom fails. Even ten years ago, who would have thought that he could so soon find in the newspaper the almost unfailing prophecy of the skies of the coming day! . . . . Ignorance has already given place to knowledge, to a scientific forecasting of the elements, to a forestatement of the conditions of the earth and air. This wonderful fact, in its influence, penetrates not only to the finest fiber of social happiness, but influences all the civilizations of the earth. Although the changes of the atmosphere have seemed the most apparent of all the workings of nature, and have been more closely watched, and more constantly commented on by mankind, than all others taken together, after the lapse of fifty centuries, the desultory observer is unable to predict certainly the weather of a single day. The value of accurate scientific knowledge on a subject which affects vitally the agricultural and commercial interests of the world, as well as the physical health and spiritual happiness of mankind, cannot be overestimated. By a joint resolution of Congress, approved February 9, 1870, the Secretary-of-War was authorized and required to provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent, and at other points in the States and Territories of the United States, and for giving notice on the northern lakes, and on the sea-coast, by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms. This special service was intrusted to the immediate supervision and control of General Albert J. Meyer. . . .He is the author of a manual of signals for the United States Army and Navy. Upon his appointment as Chief of the Signal Service of the United States Army, General Meyer at once inaugurated a systematic plan; he established stations at all points, decided by competent authorities to be important and practicable. These he provided with plain, efficient instruments, and keen, trained observers, whose duty it was to report three times daily, at intervals of eight hours. These reports, made in abbreviated cipher, were conveyed by telegraph. With the delivery of the reports at Washington, and at other important posts to which they were sent, began the practical workings of the "Weather Bureau" in the Signal Service of the United States. January 15, 1871, the stations on the Atlantic Coast, with others, were added to the list reporting. One of the most important practical functions of the Bureau, is that of giving warning of approaching storms to vessels at the ports on the lakes. The unfortunate Metis received such a warming before it started on its last disastrous voyage. It gave no heed and in consequence went to wreck, and scattered its victims thick as snow-flakes on the engulfing waters of the Sound. The velocity of the storm being accurately observed at any one of the stations, it was easy to predict with accuracy the time of its arrival at any given point lying in its path; while the lightning wing of the telegraph bore this knowledge instantaneously to the threatened point. The first telegraphic warning given thus was sent and bulletined at the several ports along the lakes, November 8, 1870. The system was soon carried still nearer perfection by the adoption of cautionary signals. The first of these was displayed at Oswego, N.Y. on October 26, 1871. Near this time, without any cost to the United States, the Bureau obtained a considerable extension to its area of observation. In time the Canadian Government made a considerable appropriation to establish a similar system in the Dominion. Professor Kingston, chief of the Meteorological Bureau of Canada, requested of General Meyer an exchange of reports. Arrangements for such an exchange were duly made, and the first reports from Toronto were forwarded to the United States, November 13, 1871. Reports were also exchanged with the director of the Observatory at Montreal. The Canadian reports are made synchronously with those of the United States and in the same cipher. The stations of the Dominion are van-posts to the United States, giving warning of storms moving downward from the South. By the Act of Congress, approved June 10, 1872, it was made the duty of the Secretary of War to provide such stations, signals and reports as might be found necessary for the benefit of commercial and agricultural interests throughout the country. In response to an invitation made by the Chief Signal Officer, eighty-nine agricultural societies and thirty-eight boards of trade and chambers of commerce have appointed meteorological committees to cooperate and correspond with the Signal Bureau. The observing stations now number eighty-five. New stations are constantly being added. The station at Mount Washington is six thousand two hundred and ninety feet above the level of the sea. Other mountain stations are to be established for the purpose of making observations upon the varying meteorological phenomena of different altitudes. These observations are sometimes made in a balloon. To obtain reports of observations at sea, to some extent, the cooperation of the ship-captains and of officers at the head of exploring expeditions has been obtained. A constant interchange of correspondence is maintained with foreign meteorological societies. Five hundred tri-daily reports are constantly sent abroad. The same exchange with foreign governments will be arranged as soon as possible. Besides weather reports, a system of observation on the changes in the depths of waters in the principle Western rivers is already established. Great pains are taken with the reports on this subject, which are made to protect the river commerce from ice and freshets, and the lower river levees from breakage and overflow. The observations on the weather embrace those on atmospheric pressure, temperature, humidity of the air, force, direction and velocity of the wind, and the amount of rain-fall. For these purposes each station is carefully provided with appropriate instruments by the central office. The Signal Corps is composed of a commanding officer with the rank of brigadier-general, several commissioned officers, and a certain number of sergeants and enlisted men. The sergeants are required to be proficient in spelling, the ground-rules of arithmetic, including decimal fractions, and the geography of the United States, and are required to write a legible hand. They are examined in these branches before being admitted into the service. They are also subjected to a medical examination, and only men of sound physical condition are accepted. They are regularly enlisted into the military service of the United States, and are subject to the regulations for the government of the army. Immediately upon admission to the corps, each sergeant is sent to Fort Whipple, in Virginia, opposite Washington, where he is taught the duties of his profession, which are "chiefly those pertaining to the observation, record, and proper publication and report, at such times as may be required, of the state of the barometer, thermometer, hygrometer, and rain-gauge, or other instruments, and the report by telegraph or signal, at such times as indicated, and to such places as may be designated by the chief signal officer, of the observations made, or such other information as may be required." The text-books used in the school at Fort Whipple, are Loomis's "Text Book of Meteorology," Buchan's "Hand Book of Meteorology," Pape's "Practical Telegraphy," and the "Manual of Signals for the United States Army." Instruction in the use of the instruments is also given, and the sergeant is taught to operate a telegraph. He is required to make daily recitations, and when he is considered prepared, by his instructor, he is ordered before an examining board, and is subjected to rigid examination. If he is found properly qualified, he is assigned to a signal station in some part of the country, and is allowed an enlisted man to assist him in his duties. There are eighty-five signal stations, located in various parts of the Union, from the Atlantic and Pacific, and from British America to the Gulf of Mexico. Each of these is supplied with a full set of the instruments necessary for ascertaining the condition of the weather, etc., and is in charge of an observer-sergeant, who is required to make observations three times a day, by means of his instruments, which are adjusted to a standard at Washington. These observations are made at 8 A.M., at 4 P.M., and at midnight. Each post of observation is furnished with a clock which is regulated by the standard of Washington time, so that the observations are taken precisely at the same moment all over the United States. The result of each observation is immediately telegraphed to the Signal Office at Washington, the Government having made arrangements with the telegraph companies to secure the instant transmission of these messages. The reports are limited to a fixed number of words, and the time of their transmission to a fixed number of seconds. . . . . The work of the observers at the stations is simple. It is limited to a reading of their instruments at stated times, the transmission to Washington of the results of these observations, and of information of any meteorological facts existing at the station, when their tri-daily report is telegraphed to Washington. The work of the officers on duty at the Signal Office in Washington, is of a higher character, and demands of them the highest skill and perfect accuracy. The reports from the various stations are read and recorded as they come in, and from them, the officer charged with this duty prepares a statement of the condition of the weather during the past twenty-four hours, and indicates the changes most likely to occur within the next twenty-four hours. These statements are prepared shortly after midnight, and are at once telegraphed to the various cities and important ports of the Union, in time for their publication in the newspapers the next morning. . . . . Copies of the telegrams of "Probabilities" are also instantly sent to all boards of trade, chambers of commerce, merchants' exchanges, scientific societies, etc. and to conspicuous places, especially sea-ports, all over the country. While the Professor is preparing his bulletins from the reports just furnished him by telegraph, the sergeants are preparing maps which shall show, by arrows and numbers, exactly what was the meteorologic condition of the whole country when the last reports were sent in. These maps are printed in quantities, and give all the signal stations. A dozen copies are laid on the table with sheets of carbon paper between them, and arrow-stamps strike in them (by the manifold process) the direction of the window at each station. The other observations as to temperature, barometric pressure, etc., etc., are also in the same way put on them. These maps are displayed at various conspicuous points in Washington, e.g., at the War Department, Capitol, Observatory, Smithsonian Institution, and the office of the chief signal-officer. They serve also as perfect records of the weather for the day and hour indicated on them, and are bound up in a book for future use. Every report and paper that reaches the Signal Office is carefully preserved on file, so that, at the end of each year the office possesses a complete history of the meteorology of every day in the year, or nearly 50,000 observations, besides the countless and continuous records from all of its self-registering instruments. When momentous storms are moving, observers send extra telegrams, which are dispatched, received, acted upon, filed, etc., precisely as are the tri-daily reports. One invaluable feature of the system, as now organized by General Meyer, is that the phenomena of any particular storm are not studied for some days or weeks after its occurrence, but while the occurrence is fresh in mind. To the study of every such storm, and of all the "probabilities" issued from the office, the chief signal-officer gives his personal and unremitting attention. As the observations are made at so many stations, and forwarded every eight hours, or oftener by special telegram from all quarters of the country, the movements and behavior of every decided storm can be precisely noted; and the terrible meteor can be tracked and "raced down" in a few hours or minutes. An instance of this occurred on the 22d of February, 1871, just after the great storm which had fallen upon San Francisco. While it was still revolving round that city, its probable arrival at Corinne, Utah, was telegraphed there, and also at Cheyenne. Thousands of miles from its roar, the officers at the Signal Office in Washington indicated its track, velocity, and force. In twenty-four hours, as they had fore-warned Cheyenne and Omaha, it reached those cities. Chicago was warned twenty-four hours before it came. It arrived there with great violence, unroofing houses and causing much destruction. Its course was telegraphed to Cleveland and Buffalo, both of which places, a day after, it duly visited. The President of the Pacific Railroad has not more perfectly under his eye and control the train that left San Francisco, today, than General Meyer had the storm just described. While the observers now in the field are perfecting themselves in their work, the chief signal-officer is training other sergeants at the camp of instruction (Fort Whipple, Virginia), who will go forth hereafter as valued auxiliaries. It has been fully demonstrated by the signal-officer that the army of the United States is the best medium through which to conduct most efficiently and economically the operations of the Storm Signal-service. Through the army organization the vast system of telegraphy for meteorological purposes can be, and is now being most successfully handled. . . . Away up on G Street we see the scientific home of both old and young "Probabilities." We see it from afar, for its high Mansard seems to be stuck full of boy's kites and wind-mills, playing and flying in the winds. It looks like a gigantic play-house. . . . It is painted a pearly drab. . . . Inside the house . . . takes on a cheerfully serious air. On the first floor, we find two large offices, and a cozy little library, which stows away one thousand books, or more, on Meteorology, and its kindred themes. In its eastern hall, hang three great weather-maps, on which the state and changes of the weather at all the stations, for the past twenty-four hours, are indicated by established symbols. The second and third stories are occupied by the telegraphic corps. To this the station-work proper is assigned. In one room is the telegraphic apparatus, connecting with the many lines over which the weather reports are received from all over the country. After translation from the cipher into every-day speech, the reports are combined, and the weather-bulletin prepared. On this floor, also, the weekly mail-reports, from the widely-scattered stations, are received, examined, corrected, and filed for future use. Here, tucked away in a little room, we find "Acting Probabilities"--Professor Abbe, the unerring "weather-man" who makes ready the synopsis each day prepared for the Associate Press Agents, Postmasters, etc. The entire top floor is devoted to "local observations, and the gentlemen who play with the wind-mills and high-flying kites, upon the roof." Among the instruments used here, are Hough's barograph, a self-registering tide gauge; Addie's London barometer, which is acknowledged as the standard barometer; Gibbon's electric self-recording anemometer and anemoscope, the inventions of Lieutenant Gibbon, of the Signal-Service. The working force of the office is divided into three reliefs, each of which is on duty eight hours out of the twenty-four. The number of weather-maps issued daily from the central office is 600; from St. Louis 200; from New York 200; from Philadelphia, Chicago and Cincinnati, 100 each, making a daily issue of 1,300. Al of these are lithographed and printed at the central office. During the year 1872, 16,064 weather bulletins and 107,888 maps were issued from the office, and 2,920 reports furnished to the press. The work of the office has been recently extended by the publication of the probabilities based upon the midnight reports, which are widely distributed through the joint agency of the Signal Bureau and the Post-Office Department. Four hundred copies are issued from the Washington office, 1,000 from New York, 1,500 from Cincinnati, 800 from Detroit, 1,500 from Chicago, and 1,000 from St. Louis, and it is expected that the number will be still increased during the year. The printed copies are sent by mail to each post-office within a radius of one hundred miles of the several points of distribution, to which the matter is telegraphed from the central office. The practical value of the observations on our western rivers is strikingly illustrated by the report of the observer at Memphis, Tenn., who states that captains and pilots of boats generally decide by the reports of the Signal Bureau, on the board on the levee at that port, whether the depth of the water above is sufficient to permit them to ascend the upper Mississippi or the Ohio. Before these reports were published, boats arriving during the night lost from six to ten hours in waiting for the telegraphic reports in the morning papers. . . . . |
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