Knowing Their Place: The Blue Hill Observatory and the Value of Local Knowledge in an Era of Synoptic Weather Forecasting, 1884–1894

Author:

Bergman James

Abstract

ArgumentThe history of meteorology has focused a great deal on the “scaling up” of knowledge infrastructures through the development of national and global observation networks. This article argues that such efforts to scale up were paralleled by efforts to define a place for local knowledge. By examining efforts of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, near Boston, Massachusetts, to issuelocalweather forecasts that competed with the centralized forecasts of the U.S. Signal Service, this article finds that Blue Hill, as a user of the Signal Service's observation network, developed a new understanding of local knowledge by combining local observations of the weather with the synoptic maps afforded by the nationwide telegraph network of the U.S. Signal Service. Blue Hill used these forecasts not only as a service, but also as evidence of the superiority of its model of local forecasting over the Signal Service's model, and in the process opened up larger questions about the value of a weather forecast and the value of different kinds of knowledge in meteorology.

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Subject

History and Philosophy of Science,General Social Sciences

Reference106 articles.

1. Upton Winslow . 1884. “Letter to Abbott Lawrence Rotch,” August 16. Harvard University. Records of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory. HUA UAV 221.4, Office Files 1884–1896, Founding of Blue Hill Observatory, Box 1.

2. Cleveland Abbe and American Meteorology, 1871–1901

3. Turner Roger . 2010. “Weathering Heights: The Emergence of Aeronautical Meteorology as an Infrastructural Science.” Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

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