| 1513 | | 22 Apr:
Ponce de León is credited with discovering the Gulf Stream.KH CR |
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| 1635 | | 25 Aug:
The Great Colonial Hurricane plows through New England destroying anything in its path.NEHS HS |
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| 1638 | | 21 Oct:
The first recorded instance of ball lightning occurs during a thunderstorm in Widecombe-in-the-Moor, England.GoogleBooks ChemEu |
|
| 1643 | |
| 1717 | | 27 Feb:
A series of four successive snowstorms create the Great Snow of 1717.NEHS NWS |
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| 1752 | | 10 May:
Thomas-François Dalibard validates Benjamin Franklin's conclusion that lightning is electricity.USNA APS |
|
| | 15 Jun:
Benjamin Franklin performs his kite experiment.PSU HC |
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| 1780 | | 4 May:
The American Academy of Arts & Sciences is founded.TiS AAoA&S |
|
| | 19 May:
Smoke from forest fires cause The Dark Day of 1780.NEHS HI |
|
| 1804 | |
| 1815 | | 10 Apr:
Mount Tambora begins the largest eruption in recorded history which causes the following year to be known as the "year without a summer".NASA SIMag |
|
| 1830 | | 6 Dec:
The United States Naval Observatory is established, first as the Depot of Charts and Instruments.USNA NASA |
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| 1845 | | 28 Aug:
The first issue of Scientific American is published.SA SI |
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| 1846 | | 10 Aug:
The Smithsonian Institute is founded.SI USNA |
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| 1863 | | 3 Mar:
The National Academy of Sciences is established.NAS Harvard |
|
| 1870 | | 9 Feb:
President Ulysses S. Grant signs a joint resolution of Congress authorizing the Secretary of War to establish a national weather service.NOAA NWS |
|
| | 1 Nov:
The National Weather Service makes its first forecast.NWS PBS |
|
| 1877 | | 13 Mar:
15 year old Chester Greenfield of Farmington, Maine patents the earmuff.MIT ME |
|
| 1887 | | 2 Feb:
Groundhog Day! Six more weeks of winter if Punxsutawney Phil sees his shadow.GD 3RP |
|
| 1888 | | 27 Jan:
The National Geographic Society is incorporated. WHP |
|
| | 11 Mar:
The Great Blizzard of March 1888 or the Great White Hurricane, hits the northeastern United States.HI LoC |
|
| | 22 Sep:
The National Geographic Society begins publishing its magazine. Biblio |
|
| 1891 | | 17 Aug:
U.S. Government rainmaking experiments begin in Texas.SIMag |
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| 1898 | |
| 1900 | |
| 1904 | |
| 1911 | |
| |
| | 10 Jul:
The highest temperature recorded in Maine is 105°F at North Bridgton.NetState RCS |
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| 1921 | | 26 Apr:
The first U. S. weather report to be broadcast on the radio is made from station WEW in St. Louis, Missouri.Current MBA |
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| 1925 | | 19 Jan:
The lowest temperature recorded in Maine is -48°F at Van Buren - which has since been broken with a -50°F at Black Bear River on 16 Jan 2009.NetState CC |
|
| 1933 | |
| 1934 | |
| | 12 Apr:
The highest surface wind measured anywhere on earth was clocked by the staff of the Mount Washington Observatory at 231 mph.MWOBS WU |
|
| 1936 | |
| 1938 | |
| 1943 | | 10 Jun:
Brothers László and Georg Bíró, Hungarian refugees living in Argentina, patent the ballpoint pen.W I R E D FPN |
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| 1946 | |
| 1947 | | 7 Jul:
The Roswell Incident occurs.Space RAM |
|
| 1950 | | 24 Sep:
Black Sunday occurs when smoke from forest fires in western Canada makes its way east, darkening the skies in the eastern United States and Canada and as far away as western Europe.BLM WR |
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| |
| 1953 | |
| 1955 | | 19 Aug:
Hurricane Diane becomes the first storm to top $1 billion in damages in the U. S..NEHS NWS |
|
| 1959 | | 17 Feb:
Vanguard II, the first weather satellite, is launched.SI NASA |
|
| 1960 | | 1 Apr:
The first weather satellite, TIROS-1, goes into orbit.NASA SI |
|
| 1961 | | 22 Jan:
The lowest temperature in Connecticut, -32° F, is recorded at Coventry. This tied the record previously set at Falls Village on 16 Feb 1943.NetState CTbtN |
|
| 1975 | |
| |
| 1977 | | 19 Jan:
Snow falls in Miami, Florida and the Bahamas (I was in Freeport at the time), the only recorded occurrence in history.MiamiHerald NWS |
|
| | 11 Jul:
The supercomputer CRAY-1A, serial number 3, is delivered to NCAR, the National Center for Atmospheric Research.CISL SketchFab |
|
| 1978 | | 18 Jan:
The roof of the Hartford Civic Center collapses after accumulating a large amount of snow over a 10 day period.CH Courant |
|
| |
| 1981 | |
| 1988 | | 23 Jun:
James Hansen of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies initiates the global warming discussion.ZEP SEJ |
|
| 1991 | | 30 Oct:
The "Perfect Storm" hits the North Atlantic.NPS Weather |
|
| 1995 | |
| 1996 | |
| 2005 | |
| 2007 | | 12 Oct:
Al Gore shares the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on climate change education.NP Science |
|
| 2011 | | 11 Mar:
Northern Japan is struck by a triple disaster - a magnitude 9.0 earthquake triggers a massive tsunami which in turn causes one of the worst nuclear accidents ever to occur.NOAA USGS |
|
| 2012 | | 29 Oct:
Hurricane Sandy becomes Superstorm Sandy after moving up the east coast of the U. S. and takes a left turn towards shore that devastates many of the communities along the mid-Atlantic, especially New York and New Jersey.NASA LiveScience |
|
| 2017 | | 25 Aug:
Hurricane Harvey makes landfall in Houston, Texas and drops between 40 and 61 inches of rain across the area.HHMag Weather |
|
| | 20 Sep:
Destructive Hurricane Maria, with winds as high as 175mph, makes landfall in Puerto Rico.NASA Weather |
|
Meteorology
Another hobby of mine is amateur meteorology. I started out using the Oregon Scientific WMR-918, X-10 wireless camera and WeatherView32 software. The gauges and their solar powered transmitters were conveniently located at various points throughout my yard. I had placed the X-10 camera on my shed where it would broadcast the current visual weather conditions to a receiver hooked into my server. I wasn't entirely happy with this camera though, it tended to flicker and not give a good, consistent image. I went through many other cameras since. The WeatherView32 software worked great and the response to any modifications and bugs reports had been fast and effective. The WMR-918 was a new product at the time and had a few flaws of its own. I was not very happy with Oregon Scientifics' response and service for the short time I used the WMR-918. I thought of switching over to a Davis Instrument system because they came highly recommended by my friend Joe Faria (his station is at 
), but in January of 2001 I finally got a replacement from Oregon Scientific, the new WMR-968 (thanks to Dawn at OSI). It was a much more stable system and it gave me 11 years of great service. The only reason I don't have it any longer is that I had moved and pieces had become so brittle over the years that they would have been difficult to reuse after taking down to be re-installed at my new location. So in November of 2012 my wife bought me a new Rainwise MK III-LR which I've placed in a field behind my barn. I had some initial problems but the folks at Rainwise were very helpful and so far so good. Eventually, I will hook up another camera.
