Words of Weather: A Glossary

Fifty years ago, climate was a topic more generally discussed in schools under the rubric of physical geography. Along with data about the major agricultural and mineral assets, the prevailing winds, rainfall, and temperatures were also referred to as distinguishing qualities of a regional entity demarked in other ways in a class called political geography. Weather, on the other hand, was a topic of casual conversation that was thought to be sufficiently neutral and beyond human agency as to provide a suitable ground for anodyne reflection, complaint or expressions of hope as holidays approached. Beyond choosing what to wear, whether to take a mac, carry an umbrella, or go on a picnic was probably as far as the thinking about the weather went. Until recently, the science of weather and climate were mostly concerns for the military, farmers, market gardeners, maritime, and aviation professionals. Famously, in the late nineteenth century,...