Origin of the National Weather Service
The public at large became more interested in weather forecasting after the Schoolhouse Blizzard of January 1888. On January 12 that year, initially a relatively warm day in the Great Plains, the temperature dropped almost 30 degrees in a matter of a few hours and a blinding snowstorm came.26 Hundreds of children, leaving school and caught unaware as the blizzard hit, died of hypothermia on their way home. As crude as early weather forecasts were, it was hoped that they might at least be able to provide some warning about an event so severe. So the National Weather Service was moved to the Department of Agriculture and took on a more civilian-facing mission.
Notes:
In 1888 when a sudden snowstorm on a warm day killed hundreds of school children on their way home.
Folksonomies: history science welfare public welfare
Keywords:
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Concepts:
Weather forecasting (0.951733): dbpedia | freebase
Forecasting (0.916711): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Great Plains (0.916623): geo | website | dbpedia | freebase | yago
Meteorology (0.890458): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Agriculture (0.767036): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Blizzard (0.753000): dbpedia | freebase
Trend estimation (0.725023): dbpedia | freebase
Weather radar (0.723194): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
The Signal and the Noise