Predicting the Weather
The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History February 2 - 8.
I don’t know what it is about snow, but people love to complain when it arrives, and when it doesn’t.
Since the beginning of time, we have always tried to predict the weather, a task that is extremely difficult to do, considering we occupy a ball of gases, water, and rocks floating in space, going around a massive nuclear star that provides us warmth if we are tipped toward it in a certain way.
Still, getting a sense of what the weather might do next is something we’ve been determined to master. Early civilizations looked to the stars, convinced they offered clues about incoming storms. Thinkers like Aristotle tried to explain rain and thunder primarily through observation and speculation. In many ways, being a “weather guy” has always been a bit of a racket.
As our technology advanced, we better understood how pressure, moisture, and temperature interact. Instead of looking up and writing down our thoughts, we would send up a balloon with contraptions that collected this information.
Fast forward to the Space Age.
In the 1960s, the United States started launching weather satellites into space. The first was in April 1960, but this week, on February 3, 1966, NASA launched ESSA-1, the first of a series of satellites to collect weather data over Earth.
The difference with the ESSA satellites is that they spin, unlike their predecessors. Which, I guess, means they last longer in observing Earth’s cloud cover as it rotates. At least that’s all I can figure out, considering I took one science class growing up. Whatever, this isn’t Okay Science.
Either way, these satellites help meteorologists get a sense of what Mother Nature has in store for us, like the massive storm that hit us last week. I knew I was in trouble with ice when the storm shifted north, meaning Washington, DC, would get more sleet, which we did. It was a lovely coating of ice over 6 inches of snow. I can feel the complaints rising in my head as I type this out. The point is that spinning satellites in space helped me understand what the weather would be like.
I can’t imagine not having a weather forecast. Fortunately, we have these satellites above us, spinning, collecting data, and taking pictures for us to joke about how wrong they are.
Okay, let’s highlight what else happened this week. As a reminder, these events mark their anniversary, ending in 5 or 0. Here’s what I got:
1. Doctors in New York successfully performed the world’s first face and double-hand transplant on February 4, 2021. In 2018, 18-year-old Joe DiMeo was in a serious car accident when he was asleep at the wheel, returning home from a late-night shift at work. Roughly 80% of his body suffered third-degree burns, costing him essential body parts, like his lips and fingers. A medical team of 140 practitioners spent 23 hours in surgery, giving him the face of a 47-year-old man who donated it. DiMeo continues to recover and is now happily married to a nurse.
2. Delegates from six southern states met to form the Confederate States of America on February 4, 1861. After years of tension over slavery, especially its expansion, many southern states threatened to secede from the Union if the country elected a Republican president. After the 1860 election, which ushered in Abraham Lincoln to the White House, South Carolina announced its independence. Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi sent delegates to Montgomery, Alabama, to hammer out details and form the Confederate States of America. Five days later, they named Jefferson Davis of Mississippi as president, and the march to the Civil War was on.
3. NASA’s Apollo 14 mission landed on the Moon on February 5, 1971. This was the third time we put men on the moon, and for some reason, these men decided to hit a golf ball and throw a javelin, which I guess landed in the same crater. I’m starting to agree with the conspiracy theorists that this was staged. We would continue to send guys up there through the following December.
I spent last week sheltering inside the house, and over the past weekend, I finally pulled the ice sheets from my car—such a great time.
Hopefully, by tomorrow, it will get over 32 degrees and begin to melt this stuff. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long time before all of it is gone.
Two quick things:
1. Happy Black History Month. Here’s a refresher from what I wrote two years ago about its history.
2. Thanks to a few of you who have upgraded your subscriptions. This allowed me to have a moment where I was trending in the history section of Substack newsletters. I made it up to #45! Pretty cool.
Okay, another week ahead. I hope it’s a good one. Stay warm. Appreciate you.
Okay,
Chris
