The stations set up by the storm hunters in 1898 formed the backbone of the hurricane warning service which exists today as a greatly improved system, including squadrons of aircraft that fly into tropical storms to obtain essential data for the forecasters. Before storm hunting could be operated on a practical basis, however, it was necessary to find new means of communication. Dependence on messages by cable from scattered islands was not good enough.
5. RADIO HELPS—THEN HINDERS
“Make it clear that I would veto the bill again.” —F. D. R.
In the 1930’s there was a strange turn of affairs in hurricane hunting. It had long been the purpose to keep ships out of trouble, first by giving the mariner a law of storms and then by sending warnings by radio. One morning in August, 1932, an indignant citizen came into a Weather Bureau office on the Gulf Coast and wanted to know where the hurricane was. The weatherman told him that there were no ship reports in the area but the center seemed to be somewhere in the central Gulf.
“What’s the matter with the radio reports from boats?” he asked.
“Because of the warnings we issued yesterday, all the ships got out of the area and apparently there are no ships close enough this morning to do any good,” the weatherman explained.
“Say, what kind of a deal is this?” demanded the citizen. “The only way we can tell where the center is located is to get radio reports from boats out there and you fellows chase all the boats away from the storm.”
“Well, that’s our business,” replied the Weather Bureau man in astonishment. “We are required by law to give warnings to shipping.”
“I don’t see it. I’m going to write to my Congressman and to the White House, if necessary, to get this straightened out. What we ought to do is send boats out there to give reports when we need them,” was the final declaration by the citizen who had one time been a shipmaster himself. And he did write to Congress and the White House. Others joined him. The argument over legislation began.
Long before the use of radio on shipboard, the location, intensity, and movement of hurricanes over the Atlantic, Caribbean, and Gulf, and along the coasts and between the islands in the West Indies had been judged by careful observations of the wind, sea and sky. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the storm hunters had become quite expert at it. Among the best were the Jesuits in the West Indies and in the Far East. They watched the high clouds moving out in advance of the tropical storm, the sea swells that are stirred up by the big winds and travel rapidly ahead, and, finally, as the storm center drew near, they studied the winds in the outer edges when they began to be felt locally. One of the pioneers in this work in the West Indies was Father Benito Viñes, at Havana. He began giving out warnings as early as 1875 and by the end of the century was an authority on the precursory signs of hurricanes, both for land observers and for men on shipboard. By that time many of the Weather Bureau men along the coasts had become experts and, after the Spanish War, they began work on the islands in the West Indies.