This Day In Space April 1

© 2009 John C. Dvorak Cage Match
By KD Martin

In 1969, a group of astronauts change the world.  They ride the biggest rocket ever built to the Moon.  It's the culmination of 10 years of space pioneering, and the foundation of four decades of exploring worlds beyond our own.  Join us for the ongoing story of our greatest adventure.



Tiros 1 Courtesy NOAA    ↔


TIROS 1, 1960   This is the true beginning of accurate weather forecasting as we know it today.

Almost fifty years ago predicting the weather was about as accurate as guessing who would win the lottery.  Tropical storms and cyclones swept up unknowing ships at sea and tornadoes, like those that ripped through Texas earlier that week, could be measured only as they inflicted damage.

In the days before television anchors could warn on a Wednesday of a rainy time for the weekend, weather monitoring was limited to wind, temperature and rainfall gauges aboard airplanes, balloons and ships.

All that changed on April 1, 1960 when the government launched the first weather satellite -- TIROS 1 -- into Earth orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida.



Courtesy NOAA    Click to enlarge

As weather satellites have gained from computer technology in the last ten years, the practical applications are only starting to be understood and harnessed, said Krishna Rao, chief scientist for Satellites and Information Services with the Commerce Departments National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Orbiting Earth 450 miles (725 kilometers) overhead, the 10 TIROS satellites carried one-inch tubes that absorbed images and transmitted data to ground stations, all in a matter of minutes. On the ground, the data was photographed and processed into a print, like a roll of film.

More and more people are set to gain from data gleaned from weather satellites as computer technology improves, Rao said. Now anyone with a ground-receiving station can pick up regional broadcast signals.

An example of a future use for high-resolution data, Rao said, is measuring climate change. The extent of global warming should become clearer 10 years from now when technology now in space allows scientists to measure detailed changes over a decade's time


I hope you all enjoy reading TDIS as much as I enjoy preparing it for you.  Article excerpts courtesy Space.com.

OK, perhaps I'm just cynical, but ... we have accurate weather forecasting?

I know ... I know ... it's better than it was ... but still ....

It doesn't feel accurate when you hear sunshine only to leave without the umbrella and have it downpour...

Most of Florida gets accurate forecasts all summer long. They probably sound like this:

95 degrees.
95% humidity.
95% chance of late afternoon thundershowers.

Doesn't take much in the way of meteorology to guess that.

In NYC, it's not usually that bad. Anywhere in the mountains, even the little ones we have in the east, forecasts are nearly meaningless.

Laugh about forecasting all you like, we'll shut you off and let you guess about the next hurricane.

True but like I said it is funny that even with weather predictions that mother nature still manages to throw curveballs every storm.

Yeah, chaos is funny that way.