US Weather Bureau Chief Willis Moore and the reimagination of uncertainty in long-range forecasting

Environment and History

Volumn 17, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 79-105

  Pietruska, Jamie L ^a  

^a RUTGERS UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Knowledge production; Prediction; Professionalisation; Science and the public; Uncertainty; Us weather bureau; Weather forecasting; Weather prophets; Willis moore

Indexed keywords

CLIMATE PREDICTION; REGIONAL CLIMATE; TWENTIETH CENTURY; UNCERTAINTY ANALYSIS; WEATHER FORECASTING;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 79851500341     PISSN: 09673407     EISSN: 17527023     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3197/096734011X12922359172970     Document Type: Review

References (189)

1. Sarah Strauss, 'Weather Wise: Speaking Folklore to Science in Leukerbad', in Weather, Climate, Culture, ed. Sarah Strauss and Benjamin S, Orlove (New York: Berg, 2003), 44.
2. Willis L. Moore, Moore's Meteorological Almanac and Weather Guide (Chicago: Rand, McNally, 1901), 53.
3. 'How "Fake" Weather-Forecasters Fool Farmers,' New York Times (hereafter NYT), 11 Dec. 1904.
4. Katharine Anderson, Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 15, 19.
5. In her analysis of the public construction of individual and institutional scientific reputation in early Victorian weather prophecy and the subsequent administration of weather science in Britain, Katharine Anderson argues that categories of 'respectability' and 'propriety' are more historically useful for understanding the production of scientific knowledge in the public sphere than are rigid retrospective distinctions between genuine science and pseudoscience, or between popular and institutional contexts for scientific work. Like Anderson, I am concerned with the public reception of meteorology and what she terms the nineteenth-century 'public theatre of science' but here I focus explicitly on the US Weather Bureau's construction and policing of a rhetorical boundary between science and quackery as a tool for building its institutional reputation in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Katharine Anderson, 'The Weather Prophets: Science and Reputation in Victorian Meteorology', History of Science 37 (1999): 180, 203.
6. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 'US Army Signal Service Daily weather map, March 12,1888,7 A.M.' NOAA Central Library US Daily Weather Maps Project, http://docs.lib.noaa.gOv/rescue/dwm/data-rescue-daily-weather- maps.html Accessed 4 November 201.
7. 'Crushed Under the Snow', NYT, 14 Mar. 1888;
8. 'Cut Off ', Boston Daily Globe, 13 Mar. 1888;
9. W. Greely, 'Great Storm off the Atlantic Coast of the United States, March 11-14,' National Geographic 1,no. 1 (1888): 38-39;
10. 'Blasted', Boston Daily Globe, 14 Mar. 1888;
11. In a Blizzard's Grasp', NYT, 13 Mar. 1888.
12. Quotations in 'Cut Off', Boston Daily Globe, 13 Mar. 1888;
13. 'In a Blizzard's Grasp', NYT, 13 Mar. 1888.
14. 'Blasted', Boston Daily Globe, 14 Mar, 1888;
15. Mary Cable, The Blizzard of '88 (New York: Atheneum, 1988), 1-2;
16. Mark Monmonier, Air Apparent; How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize the Weather (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 2.
17. Quoted in Cable, The Blizzard of '88, 178.
18. 'Cut Off', Boston Daily Globe, 13 Mar. 1888;
19. Editorial, NYT, 26 Nov. 1888.
20. 'Another Blizzard Predicted', NYT, 19 Mar. 1888. For newspaper accounts that credit Johnson with accurately forecasting the blizzard,
21. see 'Another Blizzard Predicted,' NYT, 19 Mar. 1888;
22. '"Old Reliable" up in Connecticut', Baltimore Sun, 16 Dec. 1890;
23. 'Big Blizzard Coming ', Boston Daily Globe, 28 Jan. 1892;
24. 'Editorial Points', Boston Daily Globe, 17 Sep. 1903;
25. 'Will Destroy New York', NYT, 30 May 1907;
26. 'Sage of Middle Haddam', Boston Daily Globe, 2 Jun, 1912;
27. 'A Visit to the Prophet Who Predicted the 1888 Blizzard', NYT, 16 Jul, 1916;
28. 'Horace Johnson, Noted Weather Sharp, Dead', Boston Daily Globe, 21 Jan, 1917.
29. 'A Visit to the Prophet Who Predicted the 1888 Blizzard', NYT, 16 Jul. 1916.
30. Reports of just how far in advance Johnson predicted the blizzard varied from one to three weeks to two to six months. 'Horace Johnson, Noted Weather Sharp, Dead', Boston Daily Globe, 21 Jan. 1917;
31. 'A Visit to the Prophet Who Predicted the 1888 Blizzard', NYT, 16 Jul. 1916;
32. 'Another Blizzard Predicted', NYT, 19 Mar. 1888;
33. 'Editorial Points', Boston Daily Globe, 17 Sep. 1903;
34. 'Will Destroy New York', NYT, 30 May 1907;
35. 'Sage of Middle Haddam', Boston Daily Globe, 2 Jun. 1912.
36. The first almanac entirely devoted to long-range forecasting, Vennor 's Weather Almanac, appeared in 1877. Canadian geologist and ornithologist Henry Vennor began his rise to fame in the United States on the basis of the long-range weather predictions he published in annual almanacs and American newspapers between 1877 and 1885. Drawing both public adulation and ire for his forecasting of an entire year's worth of weather, Vennor quickly came to embody vernacular weather expertise in the American popular imagination. By the end of the century, Vennor had a host of well-known colleagues who circulated their prognostications in almanacs and newspapers: John H. Tice, W. T. Foster, and Rev. Israel R. Hicks, all of St. Louis, A. J. DeVoe of Hackensack, Levi Beebe of the Berkshire Valley, and William H. Sears of Plymouth, to name a few. Robb Sagendorph, America and Her Almanacs: Wit, Wisdom & Weather, 1639-1970 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970);
37. Scott Somerville, 'A Vennorable Weather Prophet', Chinook (Spring 1979): 36-37;
38. E. B. Garriot, Long-Range Weather Forecasts (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 36.
39. 'Southern California News', Las Angeles Times, 30 Jan, 1896;
40. 'Starts His Winter Nap', Chicago Daily Tribune, 17 Dec, 1899;
41. 'Tree Frog a Weather Sharp', Washington Post, 9 Jun. 1907.
42. The ranks of non-human weather prophets included, among others, moles (the depth of their holes indicated the severity of winter), frogs (who sought the refuge of water when inclement weather was imminent), wild geese (which the Connecticut farming community considered the sign of an early spring), yellow-billed cuckoos (whose cry announced a coming storm), caterpillars (whose colouring in late fall indicated the pattern of the coming winter), and fish (who refused to bite if a storm loomed and went to deeper water when cold weather was coming). 'The Mole as Weather Prophet', Washington Post, 24 Dec. 1905;
43. 'Frogs as Weather Prophets', Los Angeles Times, 30 Jul. 1899;
44. 'Tree Frog as Prophet', Boston Daily Globe, 14 Jul, 1907;
45. 'Frog is a Weather Prophet', Washington Post, 9 Aug, 1908;
46. 'Signs of an Early Spring', Chicago Daily Tribune, 9 Apr. 1899;
47. 'Wild Geese Flying North', Washington Post, 5 Feb. 1913;
48. 'Picture to Paint', Boston Daily Globe, 21 Aug. 1904;
49. Caterpillar as a Weather Prophet', Atlanta Constitution, 29 Jan. 1905;
50. 'Fishes as Barometers', Washington Post, 16 Sep, 1906;
51. 'Fishes Know Weather', Boston Globe, 25 Nov. 1906.
52. 'Goosebone Markings', Reading (PA) Cor. Philadelphia North American, in Washington Post, 30 Dec, 1906;
53. 'Hard Winter, Says Goose,', Philadelphia Ledger, in Atlanta Constitution, 26 Dec. 1911;
54. Edward B. Garriott, Weather Folk-Lore and Local Weather Signs (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1903), 40;
55. 'Vegetable Weather Prophet', Washington Post, 3 Oct. 1897;
56. 'Signs of an Early Spring', Chicago Daily Tribune, 9 Apr. 1899;
57. 'Dandelion as a Barometer', Bos ton Daily Globe, 11 Jul. 1909;
58. 'The Goldenrod as a Weather Prophet', Atlanta Constitution, 13 Sep. 1910.
59. Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order, 1877-1920 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), xiii.
60. N. S. Shaler, 'The Future of Weather Foretelling', Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1880, 645. On the centrality of telegraphy to late-century storm tracking and forecasting, see Monmonier, Air Apparent, xi.
61. Monmonier, Air Apparent, 7;
62. Edmund P. Willis and William H. Hooke, 'Cleveland Abbe and American Meteorology, 1871-1901', Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 87 (3,2006): 317;
63. quotation in Chief Signal-Officer, Annual Report of the Chief Signal Officer to the Secretary of War for the Year 1874 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1874), 90.
64. 'Some Popular Weather Signs', New York Tribune, in Washington Post, 1 Nov. 1908.
65. Jefferson County Agricultural Society, 'Petition for the adoption of Lieutenant M. F. Maury's system of meteorological observation', Feb. 1856, and New York State Agricultural Society, 'Petition for the adoption of Lieutenant M. F. Maury's system of meteorological observations', Feb. 1856, folder 'Adoption of Lieutenant M. F. Maury's System of Meteorological... Feb. 14 to Feb. 28, 1856', HR 34A-G1.1, House Committee on Agriculture, Records of the United States House of Representatives, RG 233, National Archives I, Washington, DC;
66. US Department of War, Annual Report of the Secretary of War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1871), 272, 398-99;
67. US Department of War, Annual Report of the Secretary of War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1877), 162-67;
68. Robert Beverly, A, J. McWhitter, and M. C. Ellzly, 'Petition to General W. B. Hazen,' 1884, folder 'Benefits to Agr. Of the Signal Service Weather Reports', HR 48AH2.2, Committee on Agriculture, RG 233, National Archives I; Journal of Proceedings; Twentieth Session of the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, 1886 (Philadelphia: J. A. Wagenseller, 1886), 133.
69. For the Relief of Farmers of the United States by Extending to them the Benefits of the Signal Service, HR 2318, 49th Cong., 1st sess.; For Extending the Benefits of the Signal Service to Farmers of the United States, HR 2506, 49th Cong., 1 st sess.;
70. House Committee on Agriculture, Extending the Benefits of the Signal Service to the Farmers of the United States: Hearings on H.R. 2318 and H.R. 2506, 49th Cong., 1st sess., May 5, 1886, 30.
71. Bruno Latour, Science in Action; How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987), 239.
72. Charles Postel, The Populist Vision (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 138.
73. Erik D. Craft, 'The Value of Weather Information Services for Nineteenth-Century Great Lakes Shipping', American Economic Review 88, (5,1998): 1059-76.
74. US Department of War, Annual Report of the Secretary of War (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1876), 110;
75. E. B. Calvert, 'How the Weather Bureau Disseminates Forecasts and Warnings', in Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1895-96 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1896), xxii-xxiii;
76. E. J. Prindle, 'Weather Forecasts: The Manner of Making Them and Their Practical Value,' Popular Science Monthly 53 (1898): 309. Quotation in US Department of War, Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1876. On the history of rural weather telegraphy in the late nineteenth century,
77. see Jamie L. Pietruska, 'Propheteering: A Cultural History of Prediction in the Gilded Age' (PhD diss. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009), chap. 3.
78. The forecast verification process by which the Bureau calculated its accuracy percentages was complex and inspired controversy both within the Bureau and among its detractors. The turn of the century found the Bureau dealing with various problems of verification, including the differences in standards of verification between the Bureau's central office and its Chicago district, the climatological diversity within the geographic boundaries of a single forecasting district, the difficulty of translating a general forecast into a local context, the disjuncture between the Bureau's quantitative verification and the public's qualitative assessments, and the rigid rules and language of Bureau forecasting that sometimes yielded forecasts that were technically accurate according to Bureau standards but misleading enough to pose an economic risk to farmers. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of the Second Convention of Weather Bureau Officials, Held at Milwaukee, Wis., August 27, 28, 29, 1901 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1902);
79. Emerson Hough, 'Does the Weather Bureau Make Good?' Everybody's Magazine, May 1909, 609-21.
80. Hough, 'Does the Weather Bureau Make Good?' 613.
81. Willis L. Moore, 'Weather Forecasting', Forum 25 (1898): 351-52.
82. Quoted in H. Helm Clayton, The Transfer of the United States Weather Service to a Civil Bureau (Boston: Alfred Mudge, 1889), 11-29.
83. Donald Whitnah, A History of the United States Weather Bureau (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965), 46-60;
84. quotation in James Rodger Fleming, 'Storms, Strikes, and Surveillance: The US Army Signal Office, 1861-1891', Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 30 (2, 2000): 328.
85. For details of the Allison Commission's work, see A. Hunter Dupree, Science in the Federal Government (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), 188-92.
86. On the history of the weather service, see Charles C. Bates and John F. Fuller, America's Weather Warriors, 1814-1985 (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1986);
87. Patrick Hughes, A Century of Weather Service; A History of the Birth and Growth of the National Weather Service, 1870-1970 (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1970);
88. James Rodger Fleming, Meteorology in America, 1800-1870 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990);
89. Monmonier, Air Apparent.
90. Mark Harrington to R. E. Kerkane, 4 Dec. 1891, Letters Sent by the Chief of the Bureau, Meteorological Correspondence of the Signal Office, 1870-93, vol. 1, RG 27, National Archives II.
91. Sterling Morton to Mark Harrington, 29 June 1893, Letters Sent by the Chief of the Bureau, Meteorological Correspondence of the Signal Office, 1870-93, vol. 3, Records of the Weather Bureau, RG 27, National Archives II, College Park, MD;
92. 'Weather Bureau Reforms', NYT, 13 Jul. 1893. In the face of a severe economic downturn, Morton instituted a series of budget-cutting measures that included a reduction in the number of telegraphed forecasts as well as a curtailing of meteorological research in favour of a strict focus on forecasting. Whitnah, A History of the United States Weather Bureau, 65-66;
93. Hall, 'Our Crippled Weather Service, Science 22:44.
94. Clayton, The Transfer of the United States Weather Service to a Civil Bureau; H. Helm Clayton to Willis Moore, 10 Dec. 1904, box 5, folder 18, Henry Helm Clayton Papers, 1877-1949 and undated, Smithsonian Institution Archives, Washington, DC;
95. 'Forecasting the Weather', Washington Post, 20 Jul. 1894;
96. Sterling P. Fergusson and Charles F. Brooks, 'Henry Helm Clayton: 1861-1946', Science 105 (n.s. no. 2723, 7 March 1947): 247-48;
97. 'Carelessness Alleged', Boston Daily Globe, 7 Nov. 1893.
98. 'Chief Harrington is Coming', Boston Daily Globe, 14 Dec. 1893.
99. 'Mr. Clayton Returns', Boston Daily Globe, 2 Dec, 1893;
100. 'To Question Clayton', Boston Daily Globe, 15 Dec, 1893;
101. Mark Harrington to Sterling Morton, 23 Dec, 1893, Letters Sent by the Chief of the Bureau, 1891-95, 1897-1911, vol. 4, RG 27, National Archives II; Harrington to Clayton, 21 Dec, 1893, Letters Sent by the Chief of the Bureau, 1891-95, 1897-1911, vol, 4, RG 27, National Archives II;
102. quotation in 'Friends Rallied', Boston Daily Globe, December 17, 1893.
103. 'To Question Clayton', Boston Daily Globe, 15 Dec. 1893;
104. Weather Bureau, 'Clippings, Suggestions, etc.' 23 December 1893, box 883, Forecast Division Series (1893), Weather Bureau Correspondence, RG 27, National Archives II.
105. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials, Held at Omaha, Nebr., October 13-14, 1898 (Washington, DC: Weather Bureau, 1899), 15-16.
106. Ibid. Proceedings of the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials 1899 15-16.
107. Ibid. 71. Proceedings of the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials 1899.
108. Ibid. 73. Proceedings of the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials 1899.
109. Ibid. 74. Proceedings of the Convention of Weather Bureau Officials 1899.
110. 'Scientist as Prophet', Washington Post, 3 Aug. 1902, For a general discussion of Moore's efforts to convey the nature and significance of the Bureau's work to the public,
111. see Bernard Mergen, Weather Matters: An American Cultural History since 1900 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2008), 13.
112. 'Scientist as Prophet', Washington Post, 3 Aug. 1902;
113. James B. Morrow, 'The Man Who Chases Cyclones', Boston Daily Globe, 5 Sep. 1909;
114. quotation in James B. Morrow, 'Blame Moore for Hot Wave', Los Angeles Times, 5 Sep. 1909;
115. Mark Monmonier, 'Telegraphy, Iconography, and the Weather Map: Cartographic Weather Reports by the United States Weather Bureau, 1870-1935', Imago Mundi 40 (1988): 19-23.
116. Contestants would be required to forecast the temperature for any three states from a predetermined list: Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, District of Columbia, Georgia, Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, and California. 'The Promotion of Meteorology', Monthly Weather Review 32 (no. 5, May 1904): 220-21. For newspaper coverage of Bard's bill,
117. see 'Big Prizes Offered Weather Prophets', Los Angeles Times, 27 Mar, 1904;
118. 'To Promote Research in Meteorology', Washington Post, 27 Mar. 1904;
119. 'Good Work of Senator Bard', Los Angeles Times, 8 May 1904;
120. 'Forecasting the Weather', Los Angeles Times. 10 Aug. 1904.
121. 'An Innovation in Barometric Observation,' New York Daily Tribune, 30 Apr. 1903,
122. quoted in Garriott, Weather Folk-Lore and Local Weather Signs, 47;
123. 'Big Prizes Offered Weather Prophets,' Los Angeles Times, 27 Mar. 1904.
124. Willis Moore to Thomas Bard, 29 Feb. 1904, box 5, folder 18, Clayton Papers; US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of the Third Convention of Weather Bureau Officials Held at Peoria, III., September 20, 21, 22, 1904 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 45.
125. Willis Moore to Thomas Bard, 29 Feb. 1904, Clayton Papers.
126. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of Peoria Convention, 43; Associated Press, 'Called Charlatans', Los Angeles Times, 22 Sep. 1904;
127. 'Weather Fakirs', Grand Forks (ND) Daily Herald, 24 Sep. 1904.
128. 'Scientist as Prophet', Washington Post, 3Aug, 1902;
129. 'Chief in Reading Weather', Washington Post, 27 Aug. 1905;
130. quotation in O, H. Miller to Willis Moore, 5 Feb, 1909, box 2, Reports on Value of Climatological Publications, Administrative and Fiscal Records, RG 27, National Archives II.
131. T. B. Jennings to Willis Moore, 18 June 1908;
132. G. Howland to Willis Moore, 17 June 1908;
133. A. J. Mitchell to Willis Moore, 5 June 1908;
134. Levi A. Judkins to Willis Moore, 5 June 1908, box 1, Reports on Value of Climatological Publications, Administrative and Fiscal Records, RG 27, National Archives II;
135. Henry J. Cox, 'Use of Weather Bureau Records in Court', in Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1903 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), 303-9.
136. 'How 'Fake' Weather-Forecasters Fool Farmers', NYT, 11 Dec. 1904;
137. US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1903-1904 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1904), xiii-xvii.
138. 'Not Official Sharps', Washington Post, 12 Jul. 1904.
139. 'Scientist as Prophet', Washington Post, 3 Aug. 1902.
140. Garriott, Weather Folk-Lore and Local Weather Signs; 'Modern Weather Man Discusses Wise Saws', San Jose Mercury News, 20 Mar. 1904;
141. 'Good-by to the Ground Hog', Washington Post, 4 Nov. 1906.
142. 'How 'Fake' Weather-Forecasters Fool Farmers', NYT, 11 Dec. 1904. Moore was not the first to publish weather verification charts. In 1864, the British Board of Trade requested verification charts of former H.M.S. Beagle captain Robert FitzRoy 's weather forecasts. Anderson, Predicting the Weather, 151.
143. U.S Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1903-1904, xv-xvi;
144. Garriott, Long-Range Weather Forecasts, 9.
145. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of Peoria Convention, 43, 249;
146. US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1903-1904, xiii;
147. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of Peoria Convention, 248.
148. 'Forecasts for a Month', NYT, 28 Mar. 1906;
149. 'Long-Range Weather Forecast', Macon (GA) Daily Telegraph, 30 Mar, 1906;
150. 'Rival of Hicks', Aberdeen (SD) Daily News, 5 Apr, 1906;
151. US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1907-1908 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1909), xiv-xv. Quotation in 'Forecasts for a Month'.
152. In response to Moore's Waldorf announcement, the New York World noted, 'Prof. Moore has the proud distinction of having missed the weather more often than any man of his inches. His guesses have kept the entire nation guessing.' 'Foster's Weather Bulletin', Los Angeles Times, 16 Apr, 1906, For criticism of the Bureau's long-range forecasting project,
153. see 'Long-Range Weather Forecast', Macon (GA) Daily Telegraph, 30 Mar, 1906;
154. Frank Waldo, 'Long-Range Prediction Impossible', Bos ton Daily Globe, 26 May 1907;
155. 'Next Year's Weather', Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 Jan, 1907.
156. US Weather Bureau, Proceedings of Omaha Convention, 43-48, 157-60.
157. C.G. Abbot, 'The Relation of the Sun-Spot Cycle to Meteorology', Monthly Weather Review 30 (no. 4, 1902): 178-81,
158. quoted in Garriott, Long-Range Weather Forecasts, 45. 64. US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1907-1908, xiv;
159. Hughes, A Century of Weather Service, 39-41;
160. quotation in US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1909-1910 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), 16.
161. Quoted in US Weather Bureau, Report of the Chief of the Weather Bureau, 1909-1910, 16.
162. Robert DeC. Ward, 'The Present Status of Long-Range Weather Forecasting', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 65, (no. 1, 1926): 6.
163. Garriott, Long-Range Weather Forecasts, 8.
164. Resolution calling upon employees of the Weather Bureau to give evidence as to certain alleged irregular conditions existing therein and so forth, HR 858,62d Cong., 3d sess., 21 Feb. 1913, 5.
165. Whitnah, A History of the United States Weather Bureau, 117-28.
166. 'Forecasting of Weather is Faked'', Idaho Daily Statesman, 30 Mar. 1916;
167. 'Warning Against Forecasters', Aberdeen (SD) Daily News, 30 Mar. 1916;
168. 'Denies Credit to Prophets', Los Angeles Times, 9 Apr. 1916;
169. 'Fake Weather Prophets and Long Prognostications Taboo', Columbus (GA) Ledger, 19 Apr. 1916;
170. 'Long-Range Weather Forecasts', Scientific Monthly 2 (no. 5, 1916): 519-20. Quotation in 'Forecasting of Weather is "Faked"'.
171. Hughes, A Century of Weather Service, 39-41, 69, 71, 138.
172. 'Forecasting the Weather', Omaha World Herald, 25 Sep, 1892;
173. Charles Fitzhugh Talman, 'Weather Forecasters Take On New Duties', NYT, 21 Nov. 1926.
174. C. M. Woodward, 'The Planetary Equinoxes - An Examination of Mr. Tice's Theory', in Garriott, Long-Range Weather Forecasts, 31.
175. 'Some Enterprising Individual', NYT, 7 Aug. 1892.
176. Weather insurance was common in Britain before it became well established in the United States. Tornado and hail insurance had been available in the United States since 1861 and 1880, respectively, but did not gain significant momentum until the second decade of the twentieth century. Frost insurance became available in the US in 1920 after an insurance industry survey revealed significant demand among citrus growers in Florida, California, and Louisiana. G, Wright Hoffman, 'Weather Forms of Insurance', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 130 (March 1927): 121-30.
177. William Gardner Reed, 'Weather Insurance', Monthly Weather Review 44 (no. 10, 1916): 575-80;
178. 'Why Not Insure Crops Against Bad Weather?' NYT, 25 Mar. 1917;
179. 'Wide Interest Felt in Rain Insurance', NYT, 27 May 1920;
180. 'Topics of the Times', NYT, 28 May 1920;
181. 'You Can Now Insure Your July 4 Outing',NYT, 27 Jun. 1920;
182. 'Rain Insurance Grows Popular', Los Angeles Times, 10 Aug, 1921;
183. 'Weather Insurance Takes Strong Hold', NYT, 14 Aug. 1921;
184. 'New Insurance Covers Weather', Atlanta Constitution, 18 Aug. 1921;
185. 'Let it Rain; What of It! I'm Insured, You Know', Boston Daily Globe, 11 Sep. 1921.
186. 'What Better Policy than a Fair-Weather Overcoat of Rainproofed Scotch Mist!' NYT, 25 Jan. 1921.
187. 'You Can Now Insure Your July 4 Outing', NYT, 17 Jun, 1920.
188. Kristine C., Harper, Weather by the Numbers: The Genesis of Modern Meteorology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008), 19. As Harper reports, insurance companies used the Weather Bureau's long-term climatological data to calculate their own risk in issuing rainfall policies a week in advance (19-20).
189. The war years also saw a flurry of experimentation in crop insurance at the same time that demand for rainfall, tornado, and hail insurance steadily increased. By 1915 farmers were generally well-insured against fire, with almost two thousand farmers' mutual fire insurance companies carrying policies that totalled over five billion dollars, more than 40 per cent of the nation's farm property value that year. Hail insurance, available from two mutual insurance company providers in the early 1880s and 28 mutual insurance companies and five joint-stock companies by 1910, became much more prevalent in the 1910s, during the 'golden age' of American agriculture, until its coverage in 1919 totalled an unprecedented half a billion dollars. And in 1917 a few insurance companies introduced blanket coverage for farmers that was not tied to a particular kind of natural hazard but rather sought to mitigate the risk of unpredictable market prices. G. Wright Hoffman, 'Crop Insurance - Its Recent Accomplishments and Its Possibilities', Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 117 (January 1925): 95, 111, 99-102.