Ear on Chicago; What's the Outlook?: Weather Bureau; Part 2

This is part two of a series of programs dealing with the weather bureau in Chicago. Last week we discussed the gathering of information and plotting it in unmatched. Now we are ready to prepare our forecams. We return to the District Forecast Center at the University of Chicago and talk to the meteorologist in charge, Joe Fultz. Now Joe, the forecasters are just about ready to go to work here and since you are the chief forecaster why you probably oversee all of the operation. Now I might explain that this is the first time so far in our broadcast of the weather bureau's operations that we have not been able to carry on a description of the work as it actually is going on because really a forecast is very involved. Is it not Joe? That's right, it's an extremely complicated process. Now you just don't do it in a minute or two. That's right and you have to examine a great amount of data and consider a great number of possibilities before you can arrive at any forecast. Now they have a new forecast that will be coming out before long but you do have an older one

that you made earlier today. How many forecasts do you put out during the day? We make regular forecasts every six hours, four times a day. Now let me ask you this, let's go back to the last forecast you made. How did that all start? You come in here and say at nine o 'clock in the morning what do you all get around and discuss what you're going to do and so on? Well yes, actually at nine o 'clock the man who has the final responsibility for the Chicago and vicinity forecast has been working for perhaps two hours studying all the maps and charts discussing it with the previous forecaster and now at this time he has gotten together with the aviation forecaster and one or two others who are in a position to discuss the situation. They look at the upper air charts, compute or estimate the movement of various upper air systems, they go through essentially the same process at the surface so that we have an idea of what the weather map is going to look like,

old 12, 24, 36 hours from now. He also has prognostic charts which have been received by a facsimile in which also assist him in getting an idea of the general picture. Then with that the estimates are made as to where rain will occur, temperature changes will take place, thunderstorms and so forth and that is discussed between the man who prepares the public forecast, the aviation forecaster and they come to some general agreement and doing that they also consider the forecast of adjacent districts so that they have a variety of opinions actually to consider before they arrive at a final judgment on it. Then at that stage when they have a general idea of what the weather map and what the general weather picture is going to look like, the man is ready to sit down and write the forecast for Chicago and vicinity. Joe, from what

you said it certainly is a very complex situation and I think the listeners can understand what a really minor point the observation that we recorded at the airport has to do with making the forecast for Chicago and vicinity. The actual weather conditions in Chicago have little to do with the forecast. Well that's right when we make a forecast we're not interested especially in what the weather is now but what is going to be in the future. Yes. Joe, how did all this come about this weather forecasting? This is certainly not like the old Farmers Almanac where you can just look in the paper and see what it's going to be or in the magazine and see what it's going to be. Well if you go back into the history of weather forecasting the real key to weather forecasting and the weather service in general is communications. We could not have a weather service before the invention of the telegraph and most of the weather services in the world were established all in the 1860s, 70s, thereabouts, telegraph was invented about 1840. Well Ben Franklin used to

forecast the weather down then didn't he? Well that's right to a certain extent I shouldn't say forecast it so much as study the movements of storms and he got that information largely by mail so by the time he received that it was too late to really make a forecast. He was forecasting weather that is two weeks old already. Well that's right, yes. Well Joe I think that's just about completes our discussion here except for one final thing. What is the Chicago and vicinity forecast? The latest forecast for Chicago and vicinity is sunny and not so cool this afternoon. Partly cloudy and warmer tonight and Friday with chance of brief showers late tonight or early Friday. High today 64 except lower near the lake. Low tonight 48 high Friday in the 70s. Low Friday night 56. Southeasterly winds 10 to 18 miles per hour today and tonight. South to southeast 15 to 20 miles per hour Friday. Only one

more step then and that's to transmit this information to your downtown office and to the CAA back at the airport. Well there is our weather forecast coming in now. We've arrived downtown at the loop office of the United States Weather Bureau. This actually is where they used to have the forecasting station and then they moved it out to the University of Chicago. This is located on the 14th floor of the old post office building. The man we're going to talk to here is Ivan Brunk. Ivan is a supervising meteorologist. Now Ivan we see this one small bit of information coming in on this one teletype here and that's our Chicago and vicinity forecast that we've been discussing on this program. But what about these other machines over here? What do you have

coming in over there? They're bringing us in weather reports from all parts of the country. What weather conditions are the present moment at hundreds of cities and other places in the United States? Now what do you do with that information? Those are used to write weather summaries and bulletins and also to answer telephone calls from people who want to know what the weather is at the moment in other parts of the country. If the white socks are playing in New York City, why people want to know if it's raining during the game and so forth? How do you get that information out to the public? Our information forecasts, so forth, are sent out by a number of different methods. Well I would not tell you, when we were out at the University I mentioned that we were going to hold up discussing disseminating the information until we got down here. So why don't we continue with our Chicago area forecast that you just got from the University? Now what would happen to that? The first thing we do with it is put it on another teletype that takes it to radio stations, newspapers, press associations and others. It's a separate teletype circuit that serves only that particular

type of customer. Where is that? That's this machine over here. And I might mention that if you notice here while this forecast is coming in, it punts to tape automatically. We simply took the tape and retransmitted it automatically on this circuit so it goes out as fast as it comes in and without any errors. We don't recut a tape. You have about six of those a day you say? Every six hours the Chicago vicinity forecast is made. It's four times a day every six hours. All right now what about the forecast that you get from other communities? What do you do with that? This same teletype circuit that goes to radio stations and newspapers carries weather information particularly forecasts for other parts of the country. That is their press association to distribute from Chicago forecast for many other parts of the country. Those come in on this machine over here. That also punts is up a tape as it comes in. And we simply put the tape on over here and relay the material at once to this public teletype circuit. You know there's one thing that we haven't mentioned as we went through. We discussed all of the state forecast, the lake forecast, the Chicago vicinity.

But there is also a general Midwest forecast that we see on the wires every once in a while. Where is that done? The Midwest weather outlook is prepared at this office. Basic weather maps are made by the weather bureau every six hours. So there's a basic set of forecasts put out about every six hours. Where is that done, Ivan? That's done at this office. Right out here in the other room. Why don't we walk over there and take a look at that operation? Because there is a little quieter in here and also besides the Midwest outlook there are five day forecast and 30 day forecast. And I want to ask you a little bit about that. All right now here we are in a little more quiet room. And in front of us is a desk and behind that a lot of clipboards with all sorts of information taken from the teletype and placed on the clipboards. Then up to the right there's another large bank of facsimile maps. I see that you have a facsimile machine here too. That's right. Now where are those maps coming from? The weather bureau and the military

army and Navy have what is called in Washington and the National Weather Analysis Center. That provides the basic weather analyses and maps for a large number of stations throughout the country. Formerly each station plotted its own map but now a large part of that is unnecessary through the use of facsimile for the transformation of these maps. Getting back to that Midwest weather outlook. You see it's done right here. That's right. Our forecasters at this office prepare it. Well how do they do it? They take the weather forecast for all these locations and this sort of compile them. That's right. The Midwest weather outlook is designed to serve radio and TV and the public in sort of semi -technical language. It's background information for radio and TV weather programs. We take the weather map and the forecast and try to use this in a simple way of explaining why we're going to have this type of weather in the next several days. I have an what about 5 -day forecast and 30 -day forecasts? Where are they made? The 30 -day forecasts for the entire country are made by a special unit in Washington, D .C. They're transmitted to all local weather bureau

offices. They're sent out by mail. They're printed in newspapers used by radio and TV. And the 5 -day? The basic information for the 5 -day forecast is also made in Washington. However, the individual specific 5 -day forecasts for Chicago and for the Midwest are made at our forecast center to University of Chicago campus and distributed from this office. I have an what about the maps that we see, the weather maps that are printed in the newspapers? Where are they made up? They're made at this office here. Three of the Chicago newspapers are doing a good job of helping us to get weather information out to the public. Before the war, the weather bureau printed a weather map with a distribution of only a few hundred. Now we get several million copies out each day. And it's not only a map of what weather conditions are at the present time. It's a forecast of what weather conditions are expected to be during the following 24 hours. Is this one of those maps up here? Let's take a look at that. Is that today's? This is the one that was made this morning. It will be on afternoon and evening newspapers that come out. And it's a forecast of the weather

conditions expected over the country tonight and tomorrow. And I assume that the Chicago area forecast would be the same on that as we have it. That's right. We hope we keep them reasonable and accurate like that. You've got to be consistent with this thing, don't you? That's right. Forecasts have to agree with each other as much as possible. Yes. I have an what about this desk over here? What goes on here? Well, we write weather summaries here for the press associations. The TV men want a large amount of weather information. And we make scratch weather maps here of what weather conditions are in various parts of the country. Not for forecasting purposes, but simply writing an intelligent summary of what conditions are and have been at various places in the country. With particular emphasis on any unusual or severe weather. Speaking of TV weather forecasters, we happen to be up in the weather bureau at the time that PJ Hawk, who is the weather forecaster for WBBM, came up here to get some information. PJ, we've been talking for quite a good deal of time about weather forecasting. But to me, it's still very complicated.

I suppose this to you, too, isn't it? Yes, it really is, you. It always will be, I guess. Yes. Well, I think we try to describe it in the layman's language as much as possible. But we were talking to Joe Fulkes out at the university and he said, well, if we got into some of the technical language, we'd lose you in a minute and I agree with him. But what do you do up here, PJ? For example, these maps over here. I noticed a little while ago you were looking at them. Well, I try to see what Mr. Brunk and his associates have lined up so that I can give a comprehensive picture on my program. What I try to do is try to serve as a translator from this technical language that Mr. Fulkes was talking about and put it in a picture way so that the viewer can see just about what the weather is going to be. For that reason, I use symbols showing where it's going to rain and where the sun may shine. And I lean rather heavily on that teletype that you were watching in there that gives me a pretty good picture up there right close against the gun. You know,

I'm not able to come clear down here very shortly before the broadcast because our arena is quite a little ways from here. So I use that for sudden changes and also I check with the forecaster on duty here to see sometimes they may have expected rain in the forecast up until as late as perhaps 930. Then the forecaster here checks with the university forecaster and sometimes that is changed rather suddenly and they take the rain out. Maybe this cool spell that was coming in, you know, might be developing a little faster than they had expected so it'll clear things up faster than they had expected. And I have to be fully armed with that when I go on the air and sometimes I don't get it till about three minutes before so I'm kind of breathless. Well, PJ, when you're wrong and that isn't very often and the public calls up, who do they blame? You are the weather

bureau. Well, they usually blame me and in that respect, I'm rather fortunate because when the weather forecast is right and I can take the bow and when it's wrong, I say, well, it's Mr. Brunk. Well, now what about instances when you are wrong? I even told me that he's glad that you're on the television because you can explain why the forecast was wrong. Well, it's usually not a mistake made, but let's say a bad guess. Well, I do try to explain that it is a difficult thing. It's not an exact science yet. I think Mr. Brunk will agree with me on that. There are factors that we're unable to get. Constantly, the weather bureau is increasing its resources in that respect by high level analysis and observations that enable them to check up on these things. You'll notice they're doing a much better job now in pinpointing possible tornado areas. That's the result

of terrific research in the last three or four years coming out of Tinkerfield, Oklahoma. And here we have a factor that probably you've already heard about in your tour. That's the lake effect. It's really pretty bad. I think actually, and I've talked with the weather forecasters in Seattle and in New York and in Minneapolis and St. Paul, where I started first on television as a weatherman. And each one of them, of course, can tell you and cite you chapter and verse why their area is the very toughest. But I think actually the Great Lakes area is really the toughest because a little wind shift will create havoc in the forecast and suddenly drop temperatures, maybe bring enormous precipitation. You might remember, I think a year ago last winter, when Hammond, Indiana, I believe it was, got 11 inches of snow. Absolutely

unforeseen. It was just a wind switch. The wind came clear down the length of Lake Michigan and the difference in temperature and the moisture content unloaded all that snow. And that frequently happens in Buffalo. It frequently happens when the wind is from the southwest, Buffalo gets that long stretch up Lake Erie, you know. And when it's from the northeast, well then Cleveland can get an unloading suddenly. PJ, what about a young fellow that's in college and would like to become a television weatherman? What would you suggest that he do? Well, I think all the meteorological information he can possibly get would help him. I regret to say that my background isn't as full in that direction as I'd like to have had it. I studied electrical engineering and then went into the newspaper business. But I think my newspaper work has helped me because as a newspaper writer, naturally, as you know, you sort of interpret the passing scene for the reader and television

performer. It has to interpret the scene for the viewer. And I did draw pictures. I was a cartoonist. So that caused me to think more or less in pictures. And for that reason, I like to transfer that interpretation and picturization over to television so that I like to present to the viewer a picture of what he might expect. And I think a picture lingers longer in the mind than just words. You know, I was going to mention you add something that I don't see anybody else do and that's pictures and you're a very good cartoonist. Why is it we can't read those figures you put up on the thing? Well, I tell you, I have a cartoonist's legal right to scribble illegibly and also to misspell those two things are sort of a part and parcel of a cartoonist you. I have one final question. What's the outlook, PJ? Well, the outlook is pretty good for tomorrow. There might be a little rain arriving late tomorrow evening as the temperature rises. Now, you

saw on these maps how this high that is with us today is moving over into the northeast and behind that there's a south east early circulation of wind. And that's going to bring warmer temperatures and also more moisture and will have possibly a little precipitation toward the late evening. Now, that's scattered. Of course, it might hit Chicago. It might hit Hammond, Indiana. It might hit Milwaukee. But we're expecting that it might might be in Chicago area too. PJ, I'm glad you were up here and we dropped by. Thank you very much. You're here. We've come now into the records room and Ivan Brunke is still with us to tell us about what goes on in here. This is a separate department of the Weather Bureau. We don't deal in forecasts in this room. In fact, all it's done in here is taking care of past weather records and weather conditions that have occurred. How has that done? The observations from Midway Airport are sent down here and summarized and published. And we also have a file of weather observations and information from all parts of the United States and many other countries of the world. Who is your climatologist,

Ivan? I'd like to have you meet Mr. John Sullivan who is a climatologist for Chicago. John, I'd like to ask you a few questions about some of the records that Chicago has set. I think perhaps we ought to start with rainfall. What's the heaviest we've ever had? Well, the greatest 24 -hour rainfall we've ever had was 6 .19 inches back in August of 1885. But more recent years, we've had considerable rainfall here back in October of 1954, which was quite a rain. Some sections just outside of Chicago had up to 12 inches of rain in a 48 -hour period. John and I have walked over while he was talking there to this map. Now, I'm sure that people who live in the Chicago vicinity will remember October 9, 10, and 11 of 1954, the three days of the great flood that hit Chicago. John, here's an amazing thing. I was looking at

this map a little while ago. Up in Chicago now, in those three days, you had 6 .29 here on the south side, up towards the loop 5 .99 and 6 .96 and 7 .19. And then you get way down here around Blue Island, Harvey, Flossmore, and Homewood, and they had almost 11 inches of rainfall. Now, how do you account for that difference of something like four inches? Well, that's accounted for by thunderstorm cells. That is that area undoubtedly down there. He had several more of these individual thunderstorm cells over him during that period of time. And, of course, it poured out considerably more water. And, of course, the same holds true for the southern portion of Decalbe County. They had up to 12 inches of rain out in that area, too. While we're looking at this map, let me ask you this question. Does Lake Michigan have a great deal of effect on rainfall or lack of rainfall? Not as far as these heavy rainfalls are

concerned. Occasionally, we get some light snow that can be directly associated with Lake Michigan, but not this heavy rainfall that we're speaking of here. Well, let us go back over here to your desk, John. We were talking about heavy rainfall. Let's talk a little bit about lack of rainfall. One of you had a really dry spell. Well, the driest month we've ever had was in February of 1884 when only 600s of an inch fell. And the driest year was fairly recent back in 1934. In the entire year, only 22 and 3 quarter inches of rain fell. That was part of the whole country's drought in the... In the 30s, wasn't that correct, right? Well, now, what about heat? What's been your hottest day? Well, we've had a temperature of 105 here in Chicago, and that was back in the dry year of 1934 in July of 1934. I think there were a number of big fires back in those days, too. I think there was

one in 1934 right around there out at the stockyards. These long drought conditions, if when they exist like then, really cause fire hazards, don't they? They sure do. What about lack of heat in the summertime? What's been your coldest day in the summer? Have you got any figure on that? Well, I should say just cold as day. Well, we've had some cold days in Chicago. The coldest day, coldest on record here is 23 below zero, and that was back in December of 1872. We may have had some collared net, but that's about as far back as our records go due to the Chicago fire. I was going to ask you about that. That was right after the Chicago fire, and I was wondering why you didn't mention something way back, but all your records were destroyed. That's correct. Some of the other large cities of the country have records that go much further back to Chicago. Our records were destroyed. Where were they? They were housed. Well, I don't recall exactly the location

of the office, but it was generally in the downtown area. Now, we've often heard John that Chicago is the windy city. Of course, it's called the windy city. Is it a really good name? Well, it doesn't fit Chicago. That is, there's several other cities that have quite a bit more wind than Chicago. I would say possibly the reason for it being called the windy city is out on Michigan Boulevard. We do get quite a bit of wind from Lake Michigan, blowing across there. It's a little stronger than other sections of the city, but cities like Buffalo have much more wind than we have. Well, I imagine that some of these cement and concrete canyons that we have in Chicago would provide a nice tunnel for the wind to filter down. Yes, the tall buildings are wrong. Michigan Avenue and Indelope do cause some funnling effect, and that again contributes toward the term windy city, although it isn't true that we are the windiest city. John, you've probably heard this said many times in Chicago. I know I have. If you don't

like the weather, just wait five minutes, and it'll change. Is it really true that Chicago has a great variety of weather? Well, we have changeable weather as noted here in the last few days, but not much more so than other points here in the Midwest. Occasionally Lake Michigan will contribute toward a change, but it's not too different than other points here in the Midwest. Okay, John. Thank you very much for telling us about your records. Now, I think we'll get back over here to Ivan Brunk, and just about ready to wrap up this program. Ivan, we spent two weeks on this program because, well, it's a very complicated situation. The weather bureau does a lot of fine work. I'd like to ask you, before we close out, what the amateur meteorologist could do at home? Can he predict the weather? He can do a certain extent. If he has no other source of information other than what he can

see, he can't do a very good job. But if he has listens to radio, gets some semi -technical knowledge of what's causing the weather and so forth, and has a few instruments, such as a barometer or thermometer, records the observation and watches clouds, why, yes, he can do a fair job of it. Well, it could be just for fun, but I suppose you would suggest that he would watch PJ Hoff instead of predicting this. That's a much better source of information. What about the Old Fire Resulman Act? Would you look in that for the weather prediction? I thought maybe we'd get this over before you'd ask me that question. Well, we saved that question for the very end. We tell most people that they can do just as good a job as the Old Fire Resulman Act in predicting the weather themselves. Is that right? Well, we won't go any further in that discussion. I could see you frowning Ivan, so we won't talk about that anymore. But anyway, the Chicago Weather Bureau

here in the windy city is a collet. He's doing a wonderful job, and we want to congratulate you on the work that you and all your compatriots up here are doing. Thank you very much, Mr. Hill, and thank you very much for showing us around the Chicago Weather Bureau. You're quite welcome. This has been the story of the Chicago Weather Bureau. You have heard the gathering of information at the Observation Station at Midway Airport, the plotting of the information on maps at the University of Chicago District Forecast Center, and the dissemination of the Forecast in the Weather Bureau's communication center at the Courthouse Building in the Loop. This is Hugh Hill speaking.