2.1
Reflections on meteorology then and now, and with Fred Sanders
Edwin Kessler, Norman, OK
In the early 1940s, the author was a junior high school student in Corpus Christi, and one of his uncles took him to see J. P. McAuliffe, meteorologist-in-charge. Mr. McAuliffe showed the author an 8˝” x 11” sheet of paper on which outlines of the United States and states had been printed, and there were isopleths of pressure with entries of wind and temperature. Mr. McAuliffe explained that he paid much more attention to the entered quantities, which were received in his office by teletype, and little to the recent concept of fronts, none of which appeared on his working paper. Then I thought that Mr. McAuliffe might be lagging in bringing benefits of modern findings to weather forecasts at Corpus Christi.
In 1950, the author began graduate studies of meteorology at M.I.T. and subsequently studied synoptic meteorology under Assistant Professor Fred Sanders. This was a time of transition from laborious hand-work with maps and charts to much more rapid computer processing of meteorological data. In 1954, Sanders and Kessler presented results of a study of the motion of vorticity centers, aided by a cardboard square that facilitated rapid mental calculation of “zbar minus z” as it was moved over a 500-mb chart with its corners strategically placed on selected contours. Our work projected the location of vorticity centers with slightly more accuracy than the Rossby wave equation.
Your author went on to emphasize studies in radar meteorology while Fred Sanders documented frontal structures and the adequacy and relevancy of frontal analyses. In 1999, we coauthored a second paper, based on observations I had made on my Oklahoma farm. This clearly shows that phenomena analyzed as fronts in Oklahoma can be quite different in important respects while presenting wind shifts and following temperature declines in common.
Frontal analysis today is widely variable. The larger community has not generally accepted Fred Sanders’ efforts to rationalize analyses of surface charts. A well-illustrated text on the history and practice of frontal analysis might be a significant remedy.
Session 2, Mesoscale Weather Systems (Room 617)
Monday, 12 January 2004, 10:45 AM-12:00 PM, Room 617
Next paper