Reposted from the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
It is not known that the founders of the American Republic were avid amateur meteorologists, many of whom performed daily weather observations. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and others were intrigued by the meteorology and climate of the new nation and deeply curious about the natural world.
At the time of the American Revolution, relatively decent thermometers, barometers, and rain gauges were available, and weather observation was all the rage.
Take Thomas Jefferson, our third president and lead author of the Declaration of Independence.
He began observing in Monticello, VA, in the early 1770s, twice a day … once at dawn and again at 4:00 PM. On his way to Philadelphia in 1776, he picked up a thermometer and made FOUR observations on July 4, 1776.
Amazingly, the high temperature that day was 76F!
Check out his observation summary from 1776 below. A few days after signing the statement, he went out and bought a barometer. I would do something like that!
With a few interruptions, Jefferson made weather observations for nearly 50 years. He had some motivations beyond scientific curiosity. A number of European “experts” claimed that there was “degeneration” of animal life in the New World due to an overly humid, cloudy and unhealthy climate. Jefferson, using observations from both the colonies and Europe, disproved such claims, stating in 1791: “By and large, I find nowhere else in relation to the climate that Virginia must envy any part of the world.”
Jefferson also wanted to study the weather to improve the forecast. He complained of the following in 1822:
“Of all the science departments, none seems to be less advanced than that of meteorology in the last hundred years.”
Ouch … unfortunately that would change soon, with the development of telegraphy in the following decades, which enables fast communication of weather observations and thus forecasts.
And then there was George Washington, who also made weather observations for decades. Washington kept both general and weather diaries, and the latter are full of all sorts of astute commentary on the weather. For example, on May 18, 1780, he wrote:
Heavy and unusual clouds – dark and at the same time a light and reddish type of light that mixes with them – alternating light and dark. This lasted until the afternoon when the sun began to appear.
Washington was so devoted to weather surveillance that its final observation was made within 24 hours of his death on December 14, 1799:
“Tomorrow is snowing & about 3 inches deep. Wind at No. Et. & Mer. At 30. Contg. Snowed until 1 a.m. and around 4 a.m. it became perfectly clear. Wind in the same place, but not strong. Mer. 28 at night. “
And then there was Benjamin Franklin, who was in a class of his own, both a weather scientist and a founder of the nation.
His Poor Richard’s almanac contains some of the earliest written weather forecasts, and he was likely the first to commercialize weather information.
Franklin’s extensive weather correspondence suggested that storms were moving from the southwest to the northeast. And with this observation and an extraordinary leap in insight, he suggested the potential for weather forecasting if you only had weather data in front of your position.
But it was Franklin’s work on electricity and his correct conclusion about the electrical origins of lightning that made him a scientific celebrity around the world. Franklin was a genius in many ways.It is extraordinary to believe that in addition to running their businesses and creating / building a new nation, these three people also had the time to delve into science.
If only we had more such leaders today …
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