Victor Boesen, Doing Something About the Weather, published 1975: Remember Mark Twain's complaint that everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it? Now author Victor Boesen reveals in this fascinating book that something finally is being done. Through hard work and imagination scientists are trying to subdue such ruthless destroyers as drought, tornadoes, hurricanes, hail, fog. By the year 2000, predicts Boesen, man will have gained major control over weather conditions that every year takes thousands of lives and destroy food and property worth billions. Here is the absorbing story of experiments with such magic tools as silver iodide, which eventually may lead to solving many of the greatest problems of our environment. Chapter 1, Looking Ahead It is the year 2000. For the farmers of the Great Plains, as so often in the past, it would be a year of disaster for lack of rain --except that this time, thanks to the perfected art of long-range weather forecasting, the farmers know the drought is coming and are ready for it.

STORM, Irving Krick vs. the U.S. Weather Bureaucracy, by: Victor Boesen

Victor Boesen, STORM: Irving Krick vs. the U.S. Weather Bureaucracy, published 1978 : note: Carolyn spoke with the author and found that the publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons of New York enjoyed his 1975 book and asked that he write this book about Dr. Krick

This is a book about one man, Irving Krick, and the federal establishment responsible for forecasting the nation's (USA) weather While everyone talks about the weather, Krick has been doing something about it. Krick, a professional meteorologist and professor at CalTech University who has developed long-range weather forecasting techniques that led to some remarkable accomplishments. In World War II, when establishment forecasters said it could not be done, Krick was able to provide military planners with sound weather-wise dates for such crucial operations as the invasion of Normandy (D-Day), the invasion of North Africa, the strategic bombing of Germany, the crossing of the Rhine.

Since the Eisenhower Administration, Krick has been providing the White House with accurate weather information such as it cannot obtain from Federal forecasters. Boesen documents the careful scientific methods Krick follows in both his long-range forecasting and cloud-seeding operations. Krick's organization doesn't hit the bull's eye every time, but it has about 85 percent effective results, according to neutral observers.

Krick forecast the 1977 drought that afflicted the West, and recommended countermeasures that were not taken. His private concern (business) has served hundreds of farmers, ranchers, airlines, individual companies, local and foreign governments. He has made it rain in Spain and in France and Italy too. Through his cloud-seeding efforts wheat flourished in the parched lands of Israel. He has made is stop hailing in Alberta, Canada and provided the right amount of snow for the 1960 Winter Olympics at Squaw Valley.

Meantime the USA weather bureaucracy insists that Krick doesn't know what he's doing. For years the bureaucracy has been spending large sums of the taxpayers' money for research in just what Krick is accomplishing. No firm results yet in its research, says the bureaucracy.

One case history for example goes back to August, 1962. Krick received an opportunity to show the space industry something of what he could do. He was asked to prepare an ultra-long range forecast for predictions of atmospheric conditions as an aid in planning space shots.

The scenario for a bogus manned space shot would be selected by engineers in the Martin Marietta Corporation (Denver Division) and Krick would select the best dates for the complicated missile launch.

Martin Marietta engineers mapped out what they needed. The imaginary space shot problem was to schedule a manned rendezvous-type mission so that no delay will be experienced due to weather. At H-hour a missile carrying a logistics payload will be launched into an orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida. This would be followed after a specified interval by a manned shot to rendezvous with the first. This second shot must be fired during daylight hours and with a delay of no more than one minute. The mission should be scheduled during the calendar month of February, 1963.

About 12 hours would be needed to prepare the logistics shot for launchings. If the wind speed including gusts at 100 feet is expected to exceed 50 knots at the launch site during the 12-hours period, the launch will be delayed. There was need to know how hard the wind was blowing beyond 25 knots at the surface, plus or minus 5 knots, and for how long during the 12 hours before launch.

Launch will not be carried out if wind speeds greater than 175 knots are anticipated between 25,000 and 50,000 ft altitude, and the vehicle will not be launched during a thunderstorm or so that the vehicle will pass through a thunderhead. The vehicle must not pass through rain or hail, but can take drizzle. It is required that the entire missile be visible at the blockhouse at launch distance 1500 ft.

It is required that the missile be visually tracked to 100,000 ft. This requires no haze aloft, 25 miles visibility and less than one-tenth-cloud coverage at the Cape Canaveral launch site.

More….In the event of abort, the impact area of the payload should have greater than 10 miles visibility, no haze aloft below 10,000 ft, and less than one-tenth cloud coverage below 10,000 ft. Clouds above 10,000 ft must not interfere with radar. Surface wind must neither exceed a mean value of 20 knots nor have gusts greater than 25 knots. Wave Heights must be less than 5 feet. Problem prepared by the Martin Meteorological Support Group.

Krick was delighted with the challenge. It was like Normandy (D-Day, WWII) all over again. He saw it all as a golden chance to get the door open to them at Martin to work with the company on some real space launchings in the future.

Dr. Krick, along with his staff, prepared the forecast and presented it to Martin Marietta for their hypothetical space launchings in February, on the 6 and 7th. On the morning of February 6, a headline leaped at him from the front page of the Denver Post: 6,500 MILES - TITAN II LIFTS TOP PAYLOAD. On February 7th, yet another headline: POLARIS MAKES 1,800 MILE TRIP DOWN ATLANTIC.

There could hardly be more flattering verification of Krick's forecast for Martin's insoluble problem than these headlines.
The flights of the Titan and Polaris dramatically demonstrated what Krick had long been shouting to the wind - that he and his group were able to make detailed and accurate forecasts far into the future for a given day and place.

Krick's elation lasted until he got back the advance copy of his paper for the May meeting of the IAS Aerospace Reliability and Maintainability Conference to be held in Washington DC May 6-8. Two members of the American Meteorological Society purported to remain unconvinced of Krick's long-range forecasting ability and wrote a two-page critique of Krick's paper. The Martin-Marietta company also said "the use of our name has no bearing on the subject".

Krick sent his paper to the May 6 meeting, but under the circumstances felt it pointless to attend. Instead, he flew to Europe to visit with friends. Krick was missed at the meeting more than he had reason to expect. "The Program Committee…was greatly distressed that you did not appear to present your paper wrote John De Coutinho of the Grumman Aircraft Engineering Company, adding that about 100 people had asked for copies of Krick's paper.

This news encouraged Krick to hope that he might get the paper published in the journal of the AIAA. Again, No, because the paper had never been presented at one of the organization's meetings. So Krick was neither heard nor read on the proposition that accurately forecasting the weather far in advance for the space industry was now a demonstrated truth.