Computer model pioneer dies

[HurricaneJoe22]

FREDERICK GALE SHUMAN, 86

Weather wizard created system for long-term computer forecasts

BY YVONNE SHINHOSTER LAMB

Washington Post Service

Frederick Gale Shuman, retired director of the National Meteorological Center whose early work with the U.S. Weather Bureau laid the foundation for how weather is predicted, died of heart failure July 29 at Fort Washington Medical Center in Maryland. He was 86.

Shuman, who achieved legendary status in his field, worked for what was the U.S. 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 key 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 in advance.

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 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, 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, Shuman became the first employee of the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, which brought together the interests and staffs of the U.S. Weather Bureau, the Air Force and the Navy.

Shuman was born July 13, 1919, in South Bend, Ind., where in high school he won first place in a statewide comprehensive mathematics competition. While at Ball State University, where he graduated in 1941, he became a junior weather observer at the Indianapolis Airport.

After college, he became a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps and earned a master's degree in meteorology at MIT in 1942.

[jabber]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like he lived a long rich life RIP

[Jim Cantore]

That is a rich life and he opened the door to an all new forcasting method.

R.I.P may your legacy live on