Page 89 - Winterling's Chasing the Wind

It was a waterspout that had formed over Trout River, quickly retreating skyward after
removing some clothes from a clothesline in the backyard of a waterfront home in the
Lake Forest section of Jacksonville.

Since weather observations are taken 24/7, my job consisted of working different
shifts. It was hard to adjust my sleeping to a regular routine since we worked the day
shift only 2 weeks, the evening shift, two weeks and the midnight (until 8 AM) two
weeks. In addition, I was always subject to being called in for severe weather, or to
replace another employee. But when we enjoy the job we are doing, we don’t spend
much time watching the clock!

Most of our forecasters were WWII veterans who learned meteorology with the Army
Air Corps. One forecaster, John Watson, was temporarily assigned to Eniwetok Island
in the Pacific for the atomic bomb tests. We had 12-inch square sticky dust collectors
on the roof for radioactivity measurements. We checked these at regular intervals with
a Geiger counter.

Here in Jacksonville, we were located below the control tower in the Terminal
Building. Adjacent to the weather office was the Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) that
directed regional air traffic and transmitted our weather reports to national weather
circuits.

The only local radar was located one floor above us in the control tower. Another local
radar was at the Jacksonville Naval Air Station about 14 miles south of us. We had a
local teletype circuit that we used to send weather reports and forecasts to area radio
and television stations and a few public buildings, one of which was the Atlantic
National Bank on Forsyth Street.

One of the old-time meteorologists, Harold Quattlebaum, was originally with the
downtown Weather Bureau office before it closed in December 1955. He told me about
the days when the office printed weather maps and had them delivered by couriers to
local businesses and maritime companies. Also, weather reports and forecasts were
telegraphed via Western Union to many public outlets. He explained how an ancient
recorder, called a triple-register, measured wind velocity each minute, amounts of rain
as it fell, as well as the accumulated hours and minutes of sunshine, on a paper-covered
drum as it rotated once a week.
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