Zipping Up

Edward J. Zipser's entry into meteorology coincided with vigorous new research in basic and applied meteorology in the tropics, fueled by three disastrous east coast hurricanes in 1954, the formation of the National Hurricane Research Project (1956), the shock of Sputnik in 1958 and the rapid emergence of satellite meteorology. He similarly benefitted from the launching of Florida State University's Department of Meteorology in 1949 where Zipser began his life-long career in airborne observations of convection. Embedded within the early hurricane research flights, Ed was precipitated into leading the Line Island Experiment and the first geosynchronous satellite observations (GOES), The Barbados Experiments and preparations for the Global Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) in 1974. The foundation of Ed's career laid in these years is the subject of this paper.