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Increase Lapham
Wed Jan 28, 2004
Listen in RealAudio 
You might not recognize the name Increase Lapham, but many contemporaries considered him the
Father of America's weather service. Hi, I'm Bryan Yeaton and this is The Weather
Notebook.
Enticed by an annual salary of $1,000, young Lapham moved to Milwaukee in 1836. When the
Wisconsin Territory became a state in 1848, he was already its prime authority on natural
history, geology, and native peoples.
Lapham understood that timely accurate weather predictions could make the Great Lakes safer
for shipping, and this made economic sense. For the next two decades, Lapham lobbied the
Smithsonian Institution, the Wisconsin legislature, and Congress to establish a national
weather agency, believing only a powerful government agency could coordinate the observations
and distribution of information.
Professor Lapham pestered Milwaukee Congressman Halbert Paine with clippings of maritime
disasters on the Great Lakes, suggesting it was the Government's duty to try and prevent such
losses. Finally, in February 1870, Paine introduced a Joint Congressional Resolution requiring
the Secretary of War "to provide for taking meteorological observations ... and for giving
notice on the northern lakes and on the seacoast ... of the approach and force of
storms."
On November 8th, Lapham issued the weather service's first "cautionary storm signal" for an
impending Great Lake storm. It warned: "Barometer falling with high winds at Chicago and
Milwaukee today ... high winds probable along the Lakes."
This was not merely the first official American weather forecast and warning, but also the
first correct one.
Thanks to our contributing writer, meteorologist Keith Heidorn. The Weather Notebook is with
major funding from the National Science Foundation. Follow our cross-country weather tour, at
www.weathernotebook.org. The tour is supported by Subaru of America and Davis Weather
Instruments.
Today's Links
Increase Lapham
http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/wis150/stories/1128sesq.stm
First Official Weather Warning in the United States
http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/november_8th_1870.htm
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