Biographical Memoirs Volume 60 (1991) / Chapter Skim
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15. Francis W. Reichelderfer
15. Francis W. Reichelderfer
Pages 272-291
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S Weather Bureau (now the National Weather Service)
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At that time the Naval weather service was minuscule, but Reichelclerfer sensed that the science of weather forecasting was to become increasingly important, not only for sea maneuvers but also for aircraft, which he saw as the wave of the future in warfare. In December 1917, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Franklin Delano Roosevelt asked Dr.
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international collaboration among the many branches of meteorology. While at Hampton Roacis Reichelclerfer analyzed weather maps and studied articles relating to weather and meteorology.
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fronts as discontinuities separating air masses deployecl from polar and tropical source regions. Using the Norwegian method, Reichelclerfer analyzed many maps and made forecasts.
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His flights on the Los Angeles were credited as sea duty, important for advancement in the Navy. During his stint at the Weather Bureau he met CarIGustav Rossby, a Swede who worked on many topics, inclucIing air mass and frontal analysis and rotating tanks in which fluid motions simulated atmospheric circulations on the rotating earth.
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This work enabled him to write the Report of Norwegian Methods of Weather Analysis used by Navy meteorological officers around the world and, coincidentally, by many other progressive meteorologists. At Bergen Reichelderfer learned that deck experience was required in order to qualify for lieutenant commander.
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Problems of weather forecasting, furthermore, were treated as problems of geometric or pattern recognition. Whereas today even high school students know that upward vertical air motions are largely responsible for clouds and precipitation, at that time some people in top jobs- inclucling many forecasters did not.
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Perhaps most importantly, they set up a thorough training course with scholarships for Weather Bureau employees, who were then encourages! to take graduate courses and conduct scientific research.
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Another major accomplishment Reichelderfer helped to bring about during World War II was the preparation of a forty-year series of carefully analyzed weather maps, which extended the Northern Hemisphere surface analyses back to IS99. The project involved scores of specialists and technicians and produced maps of great value to research and forecasting during the war and for decades thereafter.
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Some of his people entered the military to serve in the theaters of war; others worked on the home front. While Rossby and Joseph Kaplan directed the selection of thousands of college men to attend the meteorology courses, Reichelderfer helped shape the public policies to get the training program started and keep it maintained.
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Though studies relating to the physics of clouds contributed to basic scientific knowledge, the ultimate goal of causing precipitation at will was never realized. Computers and Numerical Weather Forecasting One of the most successful advances in forecasting came with the introduction of electronic computers for numerical weather forecasting.
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Phillips records that Charney attended a meeting at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study in August 1946. Von Neumann had convened the meeting on the subject of the application of electronic computers to weather forecasting.
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In later years the endeavor was to be repeated at many centers around the world. It led, furthermore, to a new, efficient form of research on topics ranging from the climatic effects of rising CO2 to more objective forecasts covering several days.
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operations of the Weather Bureau, whose research tract by that time expanded to include prediction of tornadoes, hurricanes, air pollution episocles, stratospheric behavior, advanced aircraft environment, and long range (a month to a season) general weather characteristics.
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In the fall of 1982, shortly before his death, the American Meteorological Society voted to establish, in his honor, the Francis W Reichelderfer Award.
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As Chief of the Weather Bureau, you presided over the evolution of meteorology and weather forecasting from an art to a science." A GOOD DEAL OF THE MATERIAL for this memoir comes from personal letters sent to me from time to time by Francis Reichelderfer. These were largely in connection with a report on the history of American meteorology that I presented at a symposium in Philadelphia sponsored by the American Meteorological Society on the occasion of the U.S.
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RElCHELDERFER 289 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 1920? Air mass analysis as practiced by the Bergen School.
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309:23-35. 1959 United States National Hurricane Research Project.
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FRANCIS W REICHELDERFER 291 1960 On the role of the IUGG in advancement of geophysics.
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