Died: 1916 AD
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1838 – Born on the 3rd of December in New York City.
– He grew up in a prosperous merchant family in New York City.
1857 – He excelled in mathematics and chemistry, and graduated from the Free Academy.
– He then taught engineering for two years at the University of Michigan while at the same time
studying astronomy under Franz Brunnow at the University.
1868 – He was hired by the Cincinnati Astronomical Society, however, the organization lacked funding and
Abbe lost his job less than a year later.
1870 – He established the U.S. Weather Bureau and inaugurated the use of daily weather forecasts.
– In recognition of his work, he was often known as Old Probability for the reliability of his forecasts
and was appointed the first head of the new service.
1871 – He personally gave the first official weather report and he continued to forecast alone for the next
six months, while simultaneously training others.
– He was joined by two army lieutenants and a civilian professor in giving reports, and the team was
then able to rotate the heavy workload.
1872 – He regularly sent over five hundred sets of daily maps and bulletins overseas in exchange for
European meteorological data.
1883 – He convinced North American railroad companies to adopt his time zone system.
1884 – He recognized that predicting the weather required a widespread, yet coordinated, team.
– He enlisted twenty volunteer weather observers to help report conditions.
– He selected data-collecting instruments that would be critical to the success of weather predicting,
and trained Army observer sergeants in their use.
1912 – The Royal Meteorogical Society presented him with the Symons Memorial Gold Medal, citing his
contribution “to instrumental, statistical, dynamical, and thermo dynamical meteorology
and forecasting.
1916 – He died on the 29th of December in Chevy Chase, Maryland, after a lifetime of outstanding
scientific achievement.