Today is National Weatherperson's Day honoring meteorologists everywhere. One of the first weather observers in the U.S. was John Jeffries. He was born on February 5th, which is why we celebrate National Weatherperson's Day today.
Here's a brief history of meteorology: The first ever weather recordings occurred around 650 B.C. Babylonians tried predicting short-term weather changes based on the appearance of clouds.
Around 340 B.C., the Greek philosopher Aristotle wrote Meteorologica, considered at the time to be the authority on weather theory for almost 2,000 years.
With the turn of the 20th century came many new inventions helping meteorologists including the radiosonde, a small radio device that takes measurements of the upper atmosphere.
Vilhelm Bjerknes, a Norwegian meteorologist in the early 1900s, was one of the founders of the modern science of weather forecasting. He teamed up with other meteorologists to come up with the theory that weather activity is concentrated at the boundaries of warm and cold air masses. They called these zones fronts, similar to battlefronts in World War 1.
With the launching of satellites into space, we got our first views of weather systems from above. The first numerical forecast model was developed in 1950, and advances in computer science have allowed us to get much better with weather forecasting.
Meteorology has come a long way.
This is why every February 5th, we celebrate weather people everywhere with National Weatherperson's Day.
