CLEVELAND ABBE

I love obscure history and unsung heroes. Here is the story of just one:

Cleveland Abbe and the Birth of Weather Forecasting, Time Zones, National Weather Service and Nat Geo

Cleveland Abbe was an accomplished astronomer, having studied in Europe and Russia. He was just 30 years old in 1868, when he accepted a position as director at the Cincinnati Observatory – the oldest observatory in the US. He was in for a big surprise when he arrived. When the observatory was constructed some 40 years earlier, it was located far from the city lights. But, by the time Abbe arrived, the city had expanded and surrounded the telescope, making it nearly impossible for him to observe the heavens.

Most folks would probably just quit in frustration, but not our young Cleveland. He found that he could use the 11 inch scope to track the movement of cloud formations during the day. With access to the Western Union telegraph, he contacted far off operators to learn their actual weather. He was soon able to combine his cloud observations with temperature, barometric pressure and humidity readings to crudely predict weather for hundreds of miles around. With funding from Western Union and free use of their telegraph, he was able to recruit volunteer observers as far away as 600 miles to further improve forecast accuracy. His predictions were freely shared over the WU system and proved quite useful.

One problem that Abbe encountered was having a standard time system for observations. He wrote a paper in 1879 advocating what today we take for granted as time zones. Three years later, the railroads all agreed to his plan, quickly followed by the US Congress – and US Standard Time Zones were born.

Yet, Abbe was still not done. He devised systems for standard instrument calibration and measurements to ensure common readings. At age 34, he started the Weather Review, which covered all of the eastern US. His predictive accuracy attracted the attention of the US Army, which took over the Review, which soon became the USDA Weather Bureau and finally the National Weather Service of NOAA. Cleveland Abbe ran operations until he retired to teaching and was one of the 33 founders of the National Geographic Society.

So, there you have it – the story of a frustrated astronomer who invented scientific weather forecasting, started US Standard time zones, founded the National Weather service and National Geographic, whose name you never even heard of. Until now.