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...