Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science at Penn State.

This is Weather World.

And.

Hello, everyone, and welcome to Weather World.

On this Thursday evening.

It is June 25th.

I'm John Neace alongside Carl Schneider and Carl.

You know, yesterday the sky was dotted with just harmless cumulus clouds.

Today it's a different look.

And I guess that means a change in the weather.

Yeah that's right John, we started sunny.

Clouds have rolled in and we expect some storms this evening.

All right.

And Carl we'll have the full forecast right through Saturday of this week in just a moment.

Also later tonight I sit down with an internationally known weather historian to talk a little bit about the history of meteorology.

But first, with that forecast, here's Carl.

Thanks very much, John, and some unsettled weather in store for us over my short range period.

Some thunderstorms to talk about tonight, a bit of a break in the action tomorrow, and then widespread rain in store for us for Saturday.

And as you mentioned, off the top clouds have invaded the Commonwealth here from west to east, only areas in the southeast holding on to some blue skies.

And the gray skies, I think are going to be commonplace here as we go through the next couple of days and look at the radar and satellite and see those mid and high level clouds moving through central and eastern Pennsylvania and western PA, we've already got some showers and even some thunderstorms popping up.

This is all along a weak cold front that's moving through the state and will kind of wash out over just to the south of our area this evening, see some more activity developing in Ohio, and that will move into southwestern Pennsylvania.

So I think through the evening hours, it's generally northwest and central.

PA that's under the gun for some of this rain.

Then as we get after dark and especially after midnight, this activity will reach southeastern Pennsylvania, and some of the showers could still hang around as we head into the early morning hours tomorrow.

But the temperature map is kind of reflective of where we've had clouds and precip across the northwest.

Temperatures are in the 60s, where it's been raining elsewhere, 70s and even lower 80s across the southeast.

And I think after this activity moves through another warm, I would say, seasonable days in store tomorrow.

And then we're going to be much cooler on Saturday as rain and clouds will be commonplace.

And through the day you may have noticed that it felt a little humid depending on where you were.

But by the afternoon, the dew points have fallen a little bit into the 50s as we mix down some drier air and eastern PA higher dew points in the west as we've got southwesterly flow ahead of that front, but it won't get overly muggy as this front passes through.

I think dew points will be relatively comfortable tomorrow.

And then on Saturday we'll obviously be dealing with a bit of a different situation with more rain.

Taking a look at the national view in terms of radar and satellite, we see our cyclone, the the parent to our cold front spinning over the Great Lakes.

That's going to be moving east through the overnight hours.

And then we're going to be just north of this boundary.

And by the time we get to Saturday, this system that you see brewing out here in the Midwest is going to ride roughly along that cold front and provide more of a widespread chance of rain here.

And we'll track that most of that system here with our evening surface map showing that parent low across the Great Lakes, moving east through the overnight hours, showers and thunderstorms moving through the state overnight tonight.

I think most of the day tomorrow will be dry but overcast as we're watching the approach of that secondary low moving along that front that will get in here Friday night and through the day Saturday.

I think Saturday is a pretty rainy day for most of the Commonwealth, especially for central and eastern Pennsylvania.

And then that system finally tries to slide off to our south and east by Saturday evening.

So we'll be drying out to kind of close that out.

So tonight the theme is dodging drops.

So early in the evening we'll have some showers and thunderstorms in western Pennsylvania.

Have to be on the lookout for a few strong storms.

This is not looking like a high end severe weather threat, but the strongest storms could produce some gusty winds and small hail.

Generally, those storms will weaken as they move east, but after dark, and especially after midnight, they'll reach the I-78 corridor where we'll have scattered showers and rumbles after midnight.

They're likely drying out in the northwest after midnight.

Lows anywhere from the 50s in the northwest to mid 60s in the southeast.

And then on Friday, most of us will be staying dry.

A few morning drops in the southeast, few showers late in the west ahead of Saturday system, but overall mostly dry despite the cloud cover, not too humid and relatively seasonable temperatures anywhere from the 70s in the northwest to low to mid 80s in southeastern Pennsylvania and finally moving into Saturday, this is looking like a very gray and unsettled day.

Rain will already be ongoing in the morning hours and most of these areas, and will end afternoon in the northwest.

But for the rest of us, it will be a pretty gray and rainy day for all of Saturday.

Highs could only be in the upper 60s in the high ground, reaching the mid 70s elsewhere, and we'll be back in a moment with more.

Tonight, we welcome one of the nation's premier historians of science, particularly historical meteorology.

Doctor James Fleming is professor emeritus of science, technology and society at Colby College in Maine.

He earned his B.S.

in astronomy from Penn State and a Ph.D.

in history from Princeton, and has broad experience at the intersection of the humanities and the sciences.

Welcome to Weather World, Jim.

Thank you.

I'm glad to be here.

So you grew up in Pennsylvania, Somerset, Cambria counties.

How did those Pennsylvania roots influence your choice of what to pursue at Penn State?

Well, I was born in Windber, Pennsylvania, a mining town, and lived in a double house with my grandparents and parents.

We then moved to the countryside in Cambria County and had a tree nursery.

My dad had Christmas trees and every June I would have to prune about 10,000 Christmas trees.

That was part of the motivation because I found out that Penn State had astronomy out of our backyard.

About 30 miles west was Blue Knob, and there were no paved roads, there were no towns.

It was really a dark sky.

So I got into the early space age.

I got into astronomy.

I had a six inch reflector telescope, and I came up to Penn State and declared your major right away.

So I said, I'll take astronomy.

All right.

So it was the darkness of southern Pennsylvania that kind of got you into that field.

It was the isolation, the deer hunting, the failed coal mines, everything.

So in the signature line of your emails, you write, everything is unprecedented.

If you don't study history.

How did your passion for the history of science develop?

Well, that motto came out during a geo engineering conference 2006, and they were all talking about fixing the sky, controlling the weather, and they were talking about how unprecedented our pickle was.

And I said, it's unprecedented if you don't study history.

And and I got involved in, uh, in my testing at Penn State, I had tested out both positive for humanities and for science.

And they said, what do you want to do?

I said, I'll do the science.

But later on, I got involved in observing observational meteorology for, uh, Colorado State University and later for the University of Washington.

And one day we clipped off the top of a pine tree on an instrumented aircraft, the instruments.

So I pulled out a two inch branch out of the collector and I said, one more meter, we would have crashed.

And I said, I'd like to find a way to engage with the atmosphere in a little more peaceful way than university and get my PhD in history where I. My dissertation was on the history of meteorology in the 19th century.

Segue, because you've written several books, including Meteorology in America, 1800 through 1870.

What are the most important points that folks should understand about the state of meteorology in the United States during that time frame?

Well, John, I was asked about the book once and what is it about?

And I said, it's about America.

I was trained as a general historian with a specialty in history of science, and I looked at the expanding networks, expanding systems of observation, the agriculture out West, and the great American storm controversy that came out.

And the Smithsonian tried to solve that controversy, but lacked the kind of technology to do so.

So they couldn't do real time weather reports.

So they got into climate studies southwest.

And I think one of the big take homes was that the networks came together.

And when we got to telegraphic networks, then you could solve the problem of daily forecasts.

You could share data in real time.

Um, you've written another book called Historical Perspectives on Climate Change, and you've said that climate is bigger than any single journal book or even disciplinary approach.

What are some of the historical elements that make it such a complex topic?

Well, climate is one of the words that is often considered to be as complex as culture, and you end up with, uh, with climate being the fabric of our lives, not just the average weather.

So meteorologists do the averages, they do the frequencies of different storms and different conditions.

But when you look at the society culture, the lived experience of climate, it in a way, it shapes our seasons.

It shapes our national attitudes towards things, the way we dress our housing.

And it becomes a really an embedded in social issues right away.

And when I realized that, I decided it wasn't just going to be a history of technical science, but a history of the lived experience of climate.

Okay.

Um, you've also done extensive biographies of important meteorologists, particularly in the 20th century.

Who do you think are some underappreciated meteorologists from that time?

Well, if you have time for four of them, okay.

One is Guy Callendar, who developed the anthropogenic greenhouse effect, the rising temperatures, rising CO2, and the radiation budget for 1938.

He put out one of the first warnings.

Sverre Pedersen, who was the only Norwegian trained forecaster at D-Day and, uh, and, uh, Harry Wexler, head of research at the weather Bureau.

Wexler was involved in early radar rockets, computers, and he actually warned against ozone depletion in the 60s.

It's an amazing guy.

And he managed the World Weather Watch.

Uh, I think anyone.

And then Joanne Simpson, the last person I wrote a book about first woman to get a meteorology degree in America, I think any of them would make a great documentary film.

Well, Pedersen certainly came up in my synoptic meteorology class because he was involved in understanding how cyclones are low pressure systems develop, and some of the great books on that too.

Yeah.

So, um, what are you working on now?

That was a hard question.

You gave that to me in advance.

Uh, I retired quote unquote in 2021, and I've been collecting my documents, archives, working on that.

I've also done podcasts about 2 or 3 every week.

It seems like that people are asking me about things, and I've decided to go back to fixing the Sky, the book that I wrote in 2010 and do a 20 year update, I might call it climate physicians and surgeons, something like that, trying to try to do an operation on the climate.

But that's my plan.

I should mention that Jim has moved back to central Pennsylvania and, uh, is a frequent visitor to our department.

It's so good to see you.

Tremendous.

Thanks for joining us, doctor.

James Fleming, professor emeritus of science, technology and society at Colby College in Maine and a premier historian on the history of science.

We will be back in a moment with more.

Showers and thunderstorms will move across the Commonwealth overnight tonight from west to east.

We've already got thunderstorm activity going on in western PA, and that will be the case through much of the evening.

Moving into central PA could have a few strong storms, but it's not looking like a huge severe weather threat.

And then after dark and especially after midnight, will reach eastern Pennsylvania with the activity ending in the west, I think all of us will be dry for the most part heading into Friday morning.

Outside of a spot shower.

This is leading to a pretty dry Friday despite the relatively cloudy conditions.

Not too humid once again Friday, and temperatures anywhere from the mid 70s northwest to low to mid 80s.

A very warm day in southeastern Pennsylvania once again.

And then Friday night, rain will move in ahead of our next system, and that will linger through much of the day on Saturday, first in the morning in western and central PA, then throughout pretty much the entire day in central and eastern Pennsylvania.

This will really hold highs down only in the upper 60s in central Pennsylvania, mid 70s in the east.

And John, it looks like Saturday for the most part is one of those days.

That's a good inside day right.

And temperatures well below average.

But beyond that the atmosphere will start to warm up.

And that will be a big topic tomorrow night in our Friday forecast frenzy, when we have the short range forecast, we'll have the extended.

And we will also have, um, uh, two week two trends.

That's it for tonight though.

We'll see you again tomorrow night.