History
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According to the BBC, today is the anniversary of the first broadcast of an in-vision television forecaster, George Cowling, who stood in front of a weather map for the first time. This was even before the first teleprompter was used. He was employed by the U. K. Meteorological Office and was a professional meteorologist. You…
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Do you like to read about history? Here is a list of ten books that are also stories about important weather events. While it’s too early to get them as Christmas presents (unless you like to shop way, way ahead), they would make great birthday presents or a gift to yourself. I have read about…
Posted in: History -
Hunger stones are an interesting marker of drought in Europe. In the past, when river levels dropped to very low levels, those conditions were marked by inscriptions on rocks that only appeared above the water when levels were low. In the recent drought, many of these inscriptions on so-called “hunger stones” have reappeared, showing just…
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Today is the 250th anniversary of the birth of Luke Howard, a pharmacist and amateur meteorologist who proposed the cloud classification scheme that is still in use today, 220 years later. In his honor, several meteorological agencies have posted stories about how to classify clouds based on information regarding how they look and how high…
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Those of you who are older might remember the terrible storm that hit Miami (and later, Louisiana) 30 years ago this week, Hurricane Andrew. There have been a lot of interesting retrospective stories in the news about it. Here is a NOAA story with several links to interviews with National Hurricane Center forecasters and others…
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The North Carolina State Climate Office has a fascinating look at historical temperature records in their state in this week’s climate blog. In their post, they look for the warmest hour ever across North Carolina and discuss how they use historical climate records to determine that golden hour. They have the complications of an ocean…
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Studies of past weather and climate events can be useful in terms of helping us to figure out current and future climate, because they give us a way to test climate models and assumptions about climate behavior. This story from Yale Climate Connections describes a volcanic eruption that occurred in Alaska in 43 BCE that…