Unlike older physical sciences like physics and chemistry, atmospheric sciences developed most of its theories in the 20th century, especially after the start of the aviation industry, when a three-dimensional picture of the atmosphere was needed to navigate safely. One of the puzzles in early weather forecasting was why it took longer to fly from east to west than vice versa in the mid-latitudes (if you’ve ever flown to Europe, you know there is quite a difference). One of my professors at the University of Wisconsin talked about the discovery of the jet stream in World War 2 as bombers flew west towards Japan and almost did not make it because their speed relative to the ground was so low.

It was not until later that they figured out the nature of the jet stream in atmospheric dynamics. Now it turns out that there was an earlier discovery of the jet stream by a Japanese meteorologist, but because of the way it was published, his work was not known in the atmospheric science community. I think you will enjoy this story from Air&Space magazine here.

U.S. B-29 pilots, unaware of the jet stream, were surprised that bombs dropped from high altitudes scattered before reaching the ground. (Loomis Dean/NARA (a-68025ac))