As mentioned earlier, a copy of the book “Weather or Not” (no longer in print but used copies can be found online) was included in the box I received from Captain Atwell. Reading it for the very first time, I came to appreciate the exceptional person Florence W. van Straten was. Not only was she highly intelligent in the fields of meteorology, oceanography, research and development, just to name a few, she was an extremely gifted writer who made reading about weather interesting and fun. I am quite certain that if the old AG3&2 and AG1&C rate training manuals were as enjoyable to read, my advancement test scores would have been much higher. With that being said, I have included the following excerpts from Florence’s book that I hope you enjoy.

Preface

Two kinds of discussion and interchange of ideas count greatly in the pleasures I experience. One sends me repeatedly to scientific meetings dealing with research and development in fields which I specialize, where time passes unnoticed as my confreres and I present, debate, argue details of our work using terminologies, equations, and concepts that would be meaningless to people outside our very special little province of scientific investigation.

Equally, however, I enjoy listening to someone who specializes in a field other than my own-scientific, literary, philosophic-when he tells me of his subject in terms that I can understand. If he is able to convey the elements of his specialty in such a way that I do not feel that I am getting the elementary course prerequisite to advanced study, I live happily for a time in a new and wonderfully different world.

I am satisfied to devote my energies to my own work and have no desire to be an amateur endocrinologist, mineralogist, or dermatologist. Yet, my curiosity is gratified when someone tells me about his work, what it encompasses, the kinds of problems encountered, and the various techniques employed in finding solutions. If, as a result, I receive some inkling of the fascination that my companion discovers in the work he does, I feel as privileged as though I had been presented with a rare and precious gift. Indeed, I have then received just such a gift.

For more than twenty years, I have probed the atmosphere and participated in various atmospheric studies. This exploration has been exciting and stimulating. Since the work, pleasure, and well-being of everyone living on the surface of the planet are continually determined by atmospheric processes, my field of study must be of general interest, and I want to tell about it.

In the telling, I am not trying to create a new set of amateur or professional weathermen. Any knowledge of atmospheric phenomena gained will not serve as a substitute for Meteorology I at a university. Here is no survey course. Indeed, my objective is quite the opposite. I am not lecturing in an undefined classroom, but chatting over a coffee cup or a glass of beer.

During the course of our conversation, some important aspects of weather science will be skipped because it so happened that I was never concerned with them; others will be perhaps overemphasized because I have devoted long years to them. Some of the material has been simplified because the detail is of interest only to the professional.

If this book conveys some understanding of how it is possible for a very small fraction of the population to devote its time and energy, eagerly and happily, to atmospheric studies and weather forecasting, it will have served its purpose. F.V.S. - Washington, D.C.

Chapter 1: Weather Matters

Another doctor, not in the Navy, claims that more people die about 4 A.M. than at any other time during a twenty-four hour period. Meteorologists and atmospheric physicists know that the atmospheric tide is always lowest at four o’clock in the morning. Low pressure, according to these statistics, may loosen the bonds with which we cling to life. Personally, I have not examined these data, and, moreover, I am aware that statistics are like a bikini: revealing what is fascinating and concealing what is vital. I will not vouch for these conclusions; I will assert, however, that weather affects our lives in all manner of interesting and unrealized ways.

And with that, as I sit here chuckling, I believe Florence’s book has indeed served its purpose, Weather or Not!

Take care everybody, God bless and have a wonderful day.