Francis Wilton Reichelderfer (August 6, 1895 – January 26, 1983), also known as “Reich”, presided over a revolutionary era in the history of the Weather Bureau.

He attended the ground school at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, signing up for courses in aerology (meteorology for fliers), expecting to be sent to Europe.

“Reich” flew in dirigibles including the LZ 129 Hindenburg, a variety of fixed wing aircraft, and competed as a hot air balloonist.

He was doing research on air mass and frontal analysis and simulation of atmospheric circulation, meanwhile establishing the first weather service support for civil aviation.

Reich also befriended Harry Guggenheim, who funded Rossby to develop the first weather observation and forecast system for aviation in California in the late 1920s; Alexander McAdie of Harvard's Blue Hill Observatory; and Robert Millikan, president of California Institute of Technology, who had extensive interactions with Reich who, in turn, had been sent by the Navy to help Irving P. Krick establish a meteorological department at Caltech.

Rossby, McAdie, Guggenheim, and Millikan would later be instrumental in supporting Reich's appointment as Director of the National Weather Bureau, now known as NOAA.

Although the Navy Department did not control the Weather Bureau, it believed improved forecasting would impact the safety and effectiveness of aviation, which, in turn, would be of major importance if the U.S. were to go to war.

Reich recruited scientifically-trained colleagues including Carl Rossby, Harry Wexler, and Horace Byers, helped found and support training programs in scientific meteorology, and introduced rigorous examination of relevant data, including radiosonde [a modified "weather balloon" developed, in response to a U.S. Navy request, at the National Bureau of Standards by Francis Dunmore and Wilbur Hinmann, Jr. under the direction of Harry Diamond [Chief of Research and Development at the Bureau of Air Commerce measurements gathered from high in the atmosphere [The radiosonde was introduced to the Weather Bureau in 1937.

With his naval aerology, shipboard, and aviation experience, his long career in the U. S. Navy, his calm demeanor, and excellent communication skills, “Reich” brought broad expertise to the task of leading the Weather Bureau during the war.

National leaders now viewed weather forecasting, possibly for the first time, as a worldwide strategic imperative affecting the movements of vast numbers of men and amounts of material.

He advanced the study of climatology by overseeing the production of a forty-year series of carefully analyzed surface maps that showed weather patterns dating back to 1899.

Earlier proposals by L. F. Richardson in the 1920s, whose formulas for analyzing meteorological data were impractical at the time, led to trials with the first electronic computers [ See John von Neumann Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, ENIAC]; it would take more powerful computers to handle the mass of data required to make timely, accurate forecasts.

His greatest strengths were comprehending where meteorology should be going, acting to move in that direction, and then attracting and keeping the talent to make it happen.