Cleveland Abbe

Guest Post by Avery Schulze

My Twitter reenactment character for History 450 at UW-Milwaukee is Cleveland Abbe. Cleveland Abbe, born in New York City December 3rd 1838, was raised by a prosperous family of the era. He went on to be most notably known as being among the very first weathermen in the nation. Abbe was a founder of the National Weather Bureau in 1870, which now known as the National Weather Service, which remains a top source of information on dangers presented by weather along with forecasting aimed at providing safety and information for the nation. Abbe was well educated, studying at prestigious universities of his time like Harvard. He was a man of great scientific background and exceptional observational skills with a keen eye for scientific process. He has many recordings of observational work in the science field, including published scientific observations on solar eclipses, sunspots, earth temperatures and more. Cleveland Abbe, leading up to his contributions to the founding of the National Weather Bureau, worked at the Cincinnati Observatory as the executive director. He went on to work directly with Increase Lapham in the creation of the very first official weather report in the United States in the wake of a deadly and powerful storm in 1869 that acted as a sort of wake up call to people of the time. He would go on to continue a successful career, being appointed as chief meteorologist in 1871 and the chief editor of numerous weather bulletins. Cleveland Abbe is also the founder of the scientific journal Monthly Weather Review, which he founded in the year 1872. For this year’s Twitter reenactment for History 450 at UW-Milwaukee I will be using the twitter handle @AbbeCleveland.