Old Probabilities (weather service nickname)

Entry in progress—BP
 
Wikipedia: National Weather Service
The National Weather Service (NWS) is an agency of the United States federal government that is tasked with providing weather forecasts, warnings of hazardous weather, and other weather-related products to organizations and the public for the purposes of protection, safety, and general information.
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1870–1899
Early attempts to record weather information can be traced back to Joseph Henry of the Smithsonian Institution, who, after a tornado in Jefferson, Illinois (modern-day Des Plaines, Illinois) in 1855, wrote to the Daily Democratic Press in Chicago for more information about the storm. Organized large-scale weather recording by the Smithsonian led to the creation of the U.S. Signal Service, the earliest predecessor of the modern-day National Weather Service. In 1869, Cleveland Abbe, then director of the Cincinnati Observatory, began developing and issuing public weather forecasts (which he called “probabilities”) using daily weather observations collected simultaneously and sent via telegraph by a network of observers. This effort was undertaken in cooperation with the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce and Western Union, which he convinced to back the collection of such information. Meanwhile, Increase A. Lapham of Wisconsin lobbied Congress to create a storm warning service, having witnessed the destructive power of storms in the Great Lakes region. Representative Halbert E. Paine introduced a bill authorizing the secretary of war to establish such a service. On February 9, 1870, the first official weather service of the United States was established through a joint resolution of Congress signed by President Ulysses S. Grant with a mission to “provide for taking meteorological observations at the military stations in the interior of the continent and at other points in the States and Territories… and for giving notice on the northern (Great) Lakes and on the seacoast by magnetic telegraph and marine signals, of the approach and force of storms.” The agency was placed under the secretary of war as Congress felt “military discipline would probably secure the greatest promptness, regularity, and accuracy in the required observations.” Within the Department of War, it was assigned to the U.S. Army Signal Service under the chief signal officer, Brigadier General Albert J. Myer. Myer gave the National Weather Service its first name: The Division of Telegrams and Reports for the Benefit of Commerce.[16]

In November 1870, Myer hired Lapham as the first civilian assistant to the new service, but Lapham left less than two years later. Abbe joined as the second civilian assistant to Myer in January 1871 and began developing a system for national forecasts, based on his work in Cincinnati, which he began issuing the following month. Throughout his career with the weather service, which lasted 45 years, Abbe urged continued research in meteorology to provide a scientific basis for forecasting.
 
Wikipedia: Cleveland Abbe
Cleveland Abbe (December 3, 1838 – October 28, 1916) was an American meteorologist and advocate of time zones.
 
While director of the Cincinnati Observatory in Cincinnati, Ohio, from 1871-1916, he developed a system of telegraphic weather reports, daily weather maps, and weather forecasts. In 1870, Congress established the U.S. Weather Bureau and inaugurated the use of daily weather forecasts. In recognition of his work, Abbe, who was often referred to as “Old Probability” for the reliability of his forecasts, was appointed the first head of the new service.
 
Wikipedia: Albert J. Myer
Albert James Myer (September 20, 1828 – August 24, 1880) was a surgeon and United States Army general. He is known as the father of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, as its first chief signal officer just prior to the American Civil War, the inventor of wig-wag signaling (or aerial telegraphy), and also as the father of the U.S. Weather Bureau.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)   
Old Probabilities
noun
U.S.
1872–
(A humorous name for) the chief signal-officer of the U.S. Signal Service Bureau, in charge of weather forecasting; also in extended use.
1872
I shouldn’t wonder if there were times when Old Probabilities himself forgets his umbrella.
Scribner’s Monthly July 365/2
 
Newspapers.com
1 July 1871, Detroit (MI) Free Press, pg. 3, col. 2:
New York newspapers find fault with “old Probabilities” at Washington, because he did not warn them beforehand of the earthquake.
 
Newspapers.com
4 July 1871, Detroit (MI) Free Press, “Local Matters,” pg. 4, col. 1:
How many a prayer went up, or down, to “Old Probabilities,” who presides at the head of the last paragraph of the weather record, as reported from Washington in the morning papers, that he would see to it and let no deluge dash the hopes and drench the streets of the city and its citizens to-day.
 
30 July 1871, The Daily Milwaukee News (Milwaukee, WI), pg. 1, col. 3:
The Weather Elsewhere.
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“Old Probabilities” Makes His Report.
 
4 August 1871, The Daily Milwaukee News (Milwaukee, WI), pg. 2, col. 2:
We have conculded that hereafter we shall not publish the telegraphic weather reports, that have been nicknamed “Old Probablilites.” They are inaccurate, so general as to be valuless, their scientific terms render them obscure, and their prediction are no more reliable than those of any other weather prophet, of which an old sailor is the best.
 
Newspapers.com
1 September 1871, Reading (PA) Times and Dispatch, pg. 2, col. 1:
THE Storm Signal Officer at Washington—he who is daily furnishing the press with weather reports—has been dubbed by a facetious editor as “Old Probability.”
 
Newspapers.com
“OLD PROB.”—A Popular Delusion DIspelled.—(...)