Posts Tagged ‘National Weather Service’
“Most of us spend too much time on the last twenty-four hours and too little on the last six thousand years”*…
“Willard’s Chronographer of American History” (1845) by Emma Willard — David Rumsey Map Collection
In the 21st-century, infographics are everywhere. In the classroom, in the newspaper, in government reports, these concise visual representations of complicated information have changed the way we imagine our world. Susan Schulten explores the pioneering work of Emma Willard (1787–1870), a leading feminist educator whose innovative maps of time laid the groundwork for the charts and graphics of today…
Willard’s remarkable story– and more glorious examples of her work– at “Emma Willard’s Maps of Time.”
* Will Durant
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As we picture it all, we might recall that it was on this date in 1870 that Congress authorized the formation of the U.S. weather service (later named the Weather Bureau; later still, the National Weather Service), and placed it under the direction of the Army Signal Corps. Cleveland Abbe, who had started the first private weather reporting and warning service (in Cincinnati) and had been issuing weather reports or bulletins since September, 1869, was the only person in the country at the time who was experienced in drawing weather maps from telegraphic reports and forecasting from them. He became the weather service’s inaugural chief scientist– effectively its founding head– in January, 1871. The first U.S. meteorologist, he is known as the “father of the U.S. Weather Bureau,” where he systemized observation, trained personnel, and established scientific methods. He went on to become one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society.
Cleveland Abbe
“This is the first age that’s ever paid much attention to the future, which is a little ironic since we may not have one”*…
Starting tomorrow, the U.S. National Weather Service will discontinue its historical practice of issuing all of its weather bulletins in ALL CAPS. The agency has been sending out its forecasts with caps lock on for more than 150 years, since the advent of the telegraph. Successive generations of teleprinters used only capital letters; but with the advent of the internet, all caps came to have the affect of a siren.
From tomorrow, all caps will be reserved for actual weather emergencies warranting them.
More at “National Weather Service Takes Off Caps Lock, Will Begin Forecasting Using Inside Voice.”
* Arthur C. Clarke
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As we reach for our umbrellas, we might recall that it was on this date in 1925 that John T. Scopes was given a preliminary hearing before three judges. He had been arrested and charged under a new Tennessee state law, the Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of Darwin’s theory of evolution in public schools. The judicial panel greenlit what became Scopes vs. The State of Tennessee (aka “the Scopes Monkey Trial”).
Tennessee legislators had responded to the urgings of William Bell Riley, head of the World’s Christian Fundamentals Association, and passed a law prohibiting the teaching of evolution (the Butler Act); in response, The American Civil Liberties Union offered to defend anyone accused of violating the Act. George Rappleyea, who managed several local mines, convinced a group of businessmen in Dayton, Tennessee, a town of 1,756, that the controversy of such a trial would give Dayton some much needed publicity. With their agreement, he called in his friend, the 24-year-old Scopes, who taught biology in the local high school– and who agreed to be the test case.
The rest is celebrity-filled history, and star-studded drama.
“The nature of things betrays itself more readily under the vexations of art than in its natural freedom”*…
Ernst Haeckel’s 1879 diagram of human evolution
The British Library is hosting “Beautiful Science: Picturing Data, Inspiring Insight” in its Folio Society Gallery from now through May 26th. The show features selection’s from the Library’s extraordinary collection of scientific visualizations, charts, and maps.
Turning numbers into pictures that tell important stories and reveal the meaning held within is an essential part of what it means to be a scientist. This is as true in today’s era of genome sequencing and climate models as it was in the 19th century.
Beautiful Science explores how our understanding of ourselves and our planet has evolved alongside our ability to represent, graph and map the mass data of the time.
The exhibit features classic illustrations dating back to 1603, including John Snow’s map of London’s SoHo that’s credited with revealing a contaminated water pump as the source of a 1854 cholera outbreak; and it extends forward to beautiful modern visualizations of data from satellites and gene sequencers.
“Circles of Life,” specially commissioned this year for the exhibit, illustrates the genetic similarities between humans and five other animals (chimpanzee and dog are shown here). See the full diagram.
Read more, and see more examples for the show, at the British Library’s site and at Wired Science (from whence the images above).
(Special bonus: Florence Nightingale’s extraordinary “rose diagram” infographic, demonstrating that more soldiers died of preventable diseases than in conflict during the Crimean War.)
* Sir Francis Bacon
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As we delight in the distillation, we might recall that it was on this date in 1870 that Congress authorized the formation of the U.S. weather service (later named the Weather Bureau; later still, the National Weather Service), and placed it under the direction of the Army Signal Corps. Cleveland Abbe, who had started the first private weather reporting and warning service (in Cincinnati) and had been issuing weather reports or bulletins since September, 1869, was the only person in the country at the time who was experienced in drawing weather maps from telegraphic reports and forecasting from them. He became the weather service’s inaugural chief scientist– effectively its founding head– in January, 1871. The first U.S. meteorologist, he is known as the “father of the U.S. Weather Bureau,” where he systemized observation, trained personnel, and established scientific methods. He went on to become one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society.
Cleveland Abbe
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