Meteorology's Struggle for Professional Recognition in the USA (1900–1950)

Abstract

Summary Meteorology, a scientific discipline almost exclusively associated with weather forecasting in the first half of the twentieth century in the USA, was viewed with disdain by more mathematically based scientific communities. A descriptive science lacking in physical and mathematical rigor, meteorology was typically without an academic home in US colleges and universities. This stood in sharp contrast to the meteorological communities across the Atlantic which were supported by dedicated geophysical institutes. Four factors kept US meteorologists, unlike their European colleagues, on the fringes of the scientific mainstream: a lack of ‘rigor’, a lack of academic presence, a lack of patronage (governmental or private), and a pervasive public view that meteorological information was ‘free’ and yet should be tailored to a variety of users. The symbiotic relationship of these factors created an almost insurmountable hurdle to disciplinary advancement. That hurdle was effectively overcome in mid-century when the military demands of the Second World War presented meteorology with the opportunity to leave behind its legacy as a ‘guessing science’ and assume its place as a mathematically and physically based theoretical scientific discipline.