Anne Louise Beck and the "Cutting Edge of Forecasting" in 1921

Anne Louise Beck from California was a little-known student of the Bergen School of Meteorology in 1920. Following her meteorological education she returned to the U.S. brimming with new knowledge of the dynamics of the atmosphere's general circulation as described by Karl and Jacob Bjerknes. As a young single women in an emerging field that had been exclusively male, she challenged the U.S. Weather Bureau to recognize and undertake advanced principles of analysis and forecasting that the Norwegian school had devised. Her 1921 M.A. thesis, "An Application of the Principles of Bjerknes' Dynamic Meteorology in a Study of Synoptic Weather Maps for the United States" was adapted for publication in the Monthly Weather Review with heavy, controversial, and ultimately inaccurate editing. She went on to teach the theory of weather and aviation in California, in an early career path that for a time paralleled that of Carl Gustav Rossby - who himself had attended the Bergen school with Beck. Beck's career and personal life went largely unrecorded, and recognition of her contributions have rarely been proclaimed. She stands as a quiet, unsung model for those who, regardless of gender or age, would challenge the status quo with new knowledge and scientifically-informed opinions.