Francis Reichelderfer - Navy Service

Navy Service

Francis began a series of experiences and career appointments in the U.S. Navy. During World War I, he became a naval reserve officer in 1916 and was selected for the first class of military personnel for training at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology meteorological school. Afterwards, he was assigned as naval aerographer (a Navy term for meteorologist) and sent to Nova Scotia to brief submarine patrol pilots on weather conditions.

But “Reich” was a man of action and volunteered to become a naval aviator. As such, he not only thought about observing and forecasting the weather, but also realized that understanding it was a matter of life and death for the aviation community. He flew in dirigibles, fixed wing aircraft, and even as a competitive hot air balloonist. Because of his meteorological and aviation experience, he became Chief of Navy Aerology in 1922 and served in that capacity until 1928. He worked in a corner of the main Weather Bureau offices in Washington, D.C., drawing up maps, comparing them to official forecasts, and pondering the weather.

The Norwegian Bergen School of Meteorology attracted his attention, and soon Reichelderfer became one of the first American meteorologists to espouse its approach to predicting weather. This approach relied on physical principles for analyzing weather fronts and air masses and not simply weather observations. The Navy assigned Reichelderfer to Bergen, Norway, in 1931 for further studies in air mass and frontal analysis. Following this assignment, he had a tour of duty at sea on the battleship Oklahoma, then back to the Navy dirigible service, and finally to sea as executive officer of the battleship Utah.

During this period, Reichelderfer made many influential friends. Among them were Carl Gustav Rossby, a Swedish meteorologist who recently moved to the U.S.; Harry Guggenheim, who funded Rossby to develop the first weather observation and forecast system for aviation in California in the late 1920s; Alexander McAdie of Harvard’s Blue Hill Observatory; and Robert Millikan, president of California Institute of Technology. These men would later be instrumental in Reichelderfer’s appointment to lead the Weather Bureau.

In September 1938, Willis Gregg, then head of the Weather Bureau, died suddenly from a heart attack. Because of his knowledge of aviation meteorology, possibly his military background (World War II loomed on the horizon), and his familiarity with Bergen methods of weather forecasting, Reichelderfer’s influential colleagues successfully championed him to head the Weather Bureau. After 22 years in the United States Navy, he retired from a first career and began moving the Weather Service into the future.