Frederick Gale Shuman, 86, early work with the US Weather Bureau laid the foundation for how weather is predicted
Hoodoo
The Washington Post
August 21, 2005
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2005/08/21/f_shuman_a_modernizer_in_weather_forecasting
WASHINGTON -- Frederick Gale Shuman, retired director of the
National Meteorological Center, whose early work with the US
Weather Bureau laid the foundation for how weather is predicted,
died of congestive heart failure July 29 at Fort Washington
Medical Center. He was 86.
Mr. Shuman, who has been called a legendary scientist, worked for
what was the US Weather Bureau from 1941 until his retirement in
1981, and continued his research until 1986. He was director of
the National Meteorological Center, now the National Centers for
Environmental Prediction, from 1964 until 1981.
He was the lead person in the early 1950s doing work on numerical
weather prediction models, searching for methods that would allow
meteorologists to issue extended weather forecasts and to predict
severe weather days. Then, before the advent of more
sophisticated computers, it was widely believed such efforts
would never be put into practical application. Today, with the
evolution of the supercomputers used by the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration, the models remain the basis on which
modern forecasting is done.
While attending the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,
N.J., from 1952 to 1954, Mr. Shuman further developed his
mathematical models for weather prediction on one of the world's
first computers, the Johnniac. He also took classes from, among
others, noted physicists J. Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein.
In 1954, Mr. Shuman became the first employee of the Joint
Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, which brought together the
interests and staffs of the US Weather Bureau, the Air Force, and
the Navy.
''We will remember Fred Shuman as a true pioneer in the
development of operational numerical weather prediction," retired
Air Force Brigadier General D. L. Johnson, director of the
National Weather Service, said recently in an agency newsletter.
''He took part in major events that have brought it from academic
concepts to its present role as the centerpiece of modern
meteorology and the basis of today's forecast services."
Mr. Shuman was born July 13, 1919, in South Bend, Ind., where in
high school he won first place in a statewide comprehensive
mathematic competition. While at Ball State University, from
which he graduated in 1941, he became a junior weather observer
at the Indianapolis Airport.
After college, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in the
Army Air Corps. As part of his training, he went to MIT and
received a master's degree in meteorology in 1942. During World
War II, he served as a weather officer in North Africa and Italy.
He returned to the Weather Bureau after the war and worked as an
airways forecaster at Wayne County Airport near Detroit. In 1951,
he received a doctor of science in meteorology from MIT, then
moved to Washington, where he engaged in the early stages of
tornado forecasting as a research meteorologist. He was
discharged from the Air Force Reserve as a major in 1956.
When the Weather Bureau set up the National Meteorological Center
in 1958, Mr. Shuman became chief of the development division. He
was named director in 1964.
In 2004, Mr. Shuman attended a symposium at the University of
Maryland on the 50th anniversary of operational numerical weather
prediction models. He was feted as one of the ''legendary
scientists" who helped ''to transform numerical prediction from
an idea to a functional reality."
Mr. Shuman was a fellow of the American Meteorological Society
and, in 1980, shared the Second Half Century Award with Andre
Robert in recognition of his pioneering efforts and contributions
in the field of numerical weather prediction. He also received
the Department of Commerce's Silver Medal in 1957 and its Gold
Medal in 1967.
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