History of surface weather analysis

Surface analysis remains a manual and partially subjective exercise, whether it be via hand and paper, or via a workstation.

[2] The invention of the telegraph in 1837 made it possible to gather weather information from multiple distant locations quickly enough to preserve its value for real-time applications.

[3] The Smithsonian Institution developed its network of observers over much of the central and eastern United States between the 1840s and 1860s once Joseph Henry took the helm.

[7] The earliest surface analyses from the United States featured a map of the continental U.S. with indications of cloud cover and wind direction arranged on an early form of what has become a station model.

[12] In the United States, the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania demonstrated that daily weather map transmission via telegraph could be accomplished.

[13] The use of frontal zones on weather maps did not appear until the introduction of the Norwegian cyclone model in the late 1910s, despite Loomis' earlier attempt at a similar notion in 1841.

[15] An increasing amount of newspapers published weather maps early in the century across the United States, before the fad passed in 1912.

[18] Despite the introduction of the Norwegian cyclone model just after World War I, the United States did not formally analyze fronts on surface analyses until August 1, 1941, just before the WBAN Analysis Center opened in downtown Washington, D.C.[19][20][21] The effort to automate map plotting began in the United States in 1969,[22] with the process complete in the 1970s.

[25] Recent advances in both the fields of meteorology and geographic information systems have made it possible to devise finely tailored products that take us from the traditional weather map into an entirely new realm.