Please join us for an in-person presentation by Conrad Vispo "Students of the Weather: The 19th century New York Network that Gave Birth to the National Weather Service" on Sunday, October 3, 2021 at 2 pm in the Morey-Devereaux Barn at Old Austerlitz. All are welcome and admission is free.

Then as now, the weather was a crucial ingredient of farming – knowing what crops should be planted when in a given year, when to expect rain, and when to prepare for a storm were all important, if largely unknown factors influencing 18th and 19th century agriculture. When agriculture was the mainstay of the State’s economy, studying the weather was a central pursuit. Key to developing that understanding was having a network of observers across the state who could diligently report the weather in a standardized way. What better set of observers than the scholarly folks who ran the many academies across the State? Recognizing this potential, the Regents sent basic meteorological instruments and instructions to the academies they supervised, and a precursor of the National Weather Service was born. Aside from recording weather statistics, academies were also asked to note down important seasonal events, such as the flowering times of various plants, the appearance of certain animals (including Passenger Pigeons!), and seasonal agricultural milestones such as the harvesting of hay – data which, nearly 200 years after the start of the network, allow us to mark the ecological effects of a changing climate. This talk will survey the history of the network, its relevance to understanding today’s climate, and some of the data collected by Columbia County’s own participants.