BiblioVault - Books about Weather forecasting

Air Apparent: How Meteorologists Learned to Map, Predict, and Dramatize Weather
Mark Monmonier
University of Chicago Press, 1999
Library of Congress QC878.M59 1999 | Dewey Decimal 551.630223

Weather maps have made our atmosphere visible, understandable, and at least moderately predictable. In Air Apparent Mark Monmonier traces debates among scientists eager to unravel the enigma of storms and global change, explains strategies for mapping the upper atmosphere and forecasting disaster, and discusses efforts to detect and control air pollution. Fascinating in its scope and detail, Air Apparent makes us take a second look at the weather map, an image that has been, and continues to be, central to our daily lives.

"Clever title, rewarding book. Monmonier . . . offers here a basic course in meteorology, which he presents gracefully by means of a history of weather maps." —Scientific American

"Mark Monmonier is onto a winner with Air Apparent. . . . It is good, accessible science and excellent history. . . . Read it." —Fred Pearce, New Scientist

"[Air Apparent] is a superb first reading for any backyard novice of weather . . . but even the veteran forecaster or researcher will find it engaging and, in some cases, enlightening." —Joe Venuti, Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

"Monmonier is solid enough in his discussion of geographic and meteorological information to satisfy the experienced weather watcher. But even if this information were not presented in such a lively and engaging manner, it would still hook most any reader who checks the weather map every morning or who sits happily entranced through a full cycle of forecasts on the Weather Channel."—Michael Kennedy, Boston Globe

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Authors of the Storm: Meteorologists and the Culture of Prediction
Gary Alan Fine
University of Chicago Press, 2007
Library of Congress QC869.5.F56 2007 | Dewey Decimal 551.63

Whether it is used as an icebreaker in conversation or as the subject of serious inquiry, “the weather” is one of the few subjects that everyone talks about. And though we recognize the faces that bring us the weather on television, how government meteorologists and forecasters go about their jobs is rarely scrutinized. Given recent weather-related disasters, it’s time we find out more. In Authors of the Storm, Gary Alan Fine offers an inside look at how meteorologists and forecasters predict the weather.

Based on field observation and interviews at the Storm Prediction Center in Oklahoma, the National Weather Service in Washington, D.C., and a handful of midwestern outlets, Fine finds a supremely hard-working, insular clique of professionals who often refer to themselves as a “band of brothers.” In Fine’s skilled hands, we learn their lingo, how they “read” weather conditions, how forecasts are written, and, of course, how those messages are conveyed to the public. Weather forecasts, he shows, are often shaped as much by social and cultural factors inside local offices as they are by approaching cumulus clouds. By opening up this unique world to us, Authors of the Storm offers a valuable and fascinating glimpse of a crucial profession.

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Masters of Uncertainty: Weather Forecasters and the Quest for Ground Truth
Phaedra Daipha
University of Chicago Press, 2015
Library of Congress QC983.D26 2015 | Dewey Decimal 551.63

Though we commonly make them the butt of our jokes, weather forecasters are in fact exceptionally good at managing uncertainty. They consistently do a better job calibrating their performance than stockbrokers, physicians, or other decision-making experts precisely because they receive feedback on their decisions in near real time. Following forecasters in their quest for truth and accuracy, therefore, holds the key to the analytically elusive process of decision making as it actually happens.

In Masters of Uncertainty, Phaedra Daipha develops a new conceptual framework for the process of decision making, after spending years immersed in the life of a northeastern office of the National Weather Service. Arguing that predicting the weather will always be more craft than science, Daipha shows how forecasters have made a virtue of the unpredictability of the weather. Impressive data infrastructures and powerful computer models are still only a substitute for the real thing outside, and so forecasters also enlist improvisational collage techniques and an omnivorous appetite for information to create a locally meaningful forecast on their computer screens. Intent on capturing decision making in action, Daipha takes the reader through engrossing firsthand accounts of several forecasting episodes (hits and misses) and offers a rare fly-on-the-wall insight into the process and challenges of producing meteorological predictions come rain or come shine. Combining rich detail with lucid argument, Masters of Uncertainty advances a theory of decision making that foregrounds the pragmatic and situated nature of expert cognition and casts into new light how we make decisions in the digital age.

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An Observer's Guide to Clouds and Weather: A Northeastern Primer on Prediction
Toby Carlson, Paul Knight, and Celia Wyckoff
American Meteorological Society, 2014
Library of Congress QC921.C34 2014 | Dewey Decimal 551.63

Today, most people look down when they want to check the weather, peeking at cell phones or popping open a browser, instead of looking up at one of the most accessible weather predictors of all—the sky. Knowing what the atmosphere has in store without relying on technology can be a gratifying experience, and now with An Observer’s Guide to Clouds and Weather, it is also one that is easy to learn.

This informative and accessible guide walks readers through the basics of making weather predictions through understanding cloud types and sky formations. It explains, in nontechnical terms, the science behind the weather, connecting fundamental meteorological concepts with the processes that shape weather patterns. Readers will learn how to develop their powers of observation and hone their ability to make quick forecasts without complicated tools. Whether you're an amateur weather enthusiast or a beginning meteorology student, An Observer’s Guide to Clouds and Weather will help anyone who prefers looking up to looking it up.

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Predicting the Weather: Victorians and the Science of Meteorology
Katharine Anderson
University of Chicago Press, 2005
Library of Congress QC857.G77A53 2005 | Dewey Decimal 551.50941

Victorian Britain, with its maritime economy and strong links between government and scientific enterprises, founded an office to collect meteorological statistics in 1854 in an effort to foster a modern science of the weather. But as the office turned to prediction rather than data collection, the fragile science became a public spectacle, with its forecasts open to daily scrutiny in the newspapers. And meteorology came to assume a pivotal role in debates about the responsibility of scientists and the authority of science.

Studying meteorology as a means to examine the historical identity of prediction, Katharine Anderson offers here an engrossing account of forecasting that analyzes scientific practice and ideas about evidence, the organization of science in public life, and the articulation of scientific values in Victorian culture. In Predicting the Weather, Anderson grapples with fundamental questions about the function, intelligibility, and boundaries of scientific work while exposing the public expectations that shaped the practice of science during this period.

A cogent analysis of the remarkable history of weather forecasting in Victorian Britain, Predicting the Weather will be essential reading for scholars interested in the public dimensions of science.

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Too Near for Dreams: The Story of Cleveland Abbe, America's First Weather Forecaster
Sean Potter
American Meteorological Society, 2020
Library of Congress QC858.A29P68 2020 | Dewey Decimal 551.5092

As director of the Cincinnati Observatory and, later, a civilian in the newly established forecast and storm warning division of the U.S. Army Signal Service, Cleveland Abbe was the first person to issue official, regularly scheduled weather forecasts, or “probabilities,” in the United States. Abbe began his work in forecasting in 1869, earning the nickname “Old Probabilities” and gaining recognition for the reliability of his reports. He would go on to become a leader of the US Weather Bureau—which we know today as the National Weather Service. In establishing a system for creating daily weather forecasts and more, this humble pioneer helped lay the foundation for modern meteorology in the United States.

Set against the backdrop of nineteenth and early twentieth-century international events and scientific advancements, this biography of Abbe explores both his personal life and his scientific career. It illuminates his time spent in Russia in the mid-1860s—as the Civil War was waged and a president was assassinated back home—in part through letters with his mother. Decades of diaries and correspondence from the Cleveland Abbe Papers at the Library of Congress, as well as first-person accounts, illuminate this biography of a mild-mannered family man whose thirst for knowledge drove him to become a giant in an emerging scientific field.

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Weather on the Air: A History of Broadcast Meteorology
Robert Henson
American Meteorological Society, 2010
Library of Congress QC877.5.H47 2010 | Dewey Decimal 551.630973

From low humor to high drama, TV weather reporting has encompassed an enormous range of styles and approaches, triggering chuckles, infuriating the masses, and at times even saving lives. In Weather on the Air,meteorologist and science journalist Robert Henson covers it all—the people, technology, science, and show business that combine to deliver the weather to the public each day.

The first comprehensive history of its kind, Weather on the Air explores the many forces that have shaped weather broadcasts over the years, including the long-term drive to professionalize weathercasting, the complex relations between government and private forecasters, and the effects of climate-change science and the Internet on today’s broadcasts. Dozens of photos and anecdotes accompany Henson’s more than two decades of research to document the evolution of weathercasts, from their primitive beginnings on the radio to the high-gloss, graphics-laden segments we watch on television every morning.

This engaging study will be an invaluable tool for students of broadcast meteorology and mass communication and an entertaining read for anyone fascinated by the public face of weather.

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