The Weather Report
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 43.5K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2022
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Meteorologists are as common as the clouds these days. Rolling onto the airwaves at morning, noon and night they tell us what to wear and where to plan our picnics. They’re local celebrities with an outsized influence. But in the 1940s, there was really only one of them: Irving P. Krick. He was suave and dapper, with the charm of a sunbeam and the boldness of a thunderclap. He was a salesman who turned the weather into a product.
Today, listen to the story of Krick and his descendants, a crew of profit prophets who have found fame and fortune staring at the sky and seeing the future. We follow them from the bloody beaches of World War II to the climate changed coasts of today, exploring their impact and predicting what they’ll mean in our wackier weather world.
Special Thanks:Special thanks to Xandra Clark, Homa Sarabi, Santi Dharmawan, Francisco Alvarez, Maureen O’Leary and everyone at NOAA, Shimon Elkabetz, Jack Neff, Joe Pennington, Brad Colman, Morgan Yarker, Megan Walker, Eric Bramford, Jay Cohen and Irving Krick Jr for supplying us with tons of great archival footage and audio.
Episode Credits:
Reported by Simon Adler and Annie McEwenProduced by Annie McEwen and Simon AdlerSound & Music by Simon Adler and Annie McEwen and Jeremy BloomMixing help from Arianne WackFact-checking by Diane KellyEdited by Soren Wheeler
Citations:
Books:
If you’re curious to know more about the history of weather forecasting, go check out Kris Harper’s book Weather by the Numbers.
Video:
We also asked Illustrator and Animator Sophia Twigt to make a little video explaining how the U.S. government agency NOAA collects and treats weather data to make weather forecasts. Here it is, narrated by Simon Adler. We hope you enjoy it:
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Oh wait, you're listening. |
| 0:07.0 | Listen to Radio Lab. |
| 0:10.0 | Radio Lab. |
| 0:11.0 | From WNYC. |
| 0:12.0 | Hi, I'm Lulu Miller. |
| 0:19.0 | On What if not sir? |
| 0:20.0 | This is Radio Lab. |
| 0:22.0 | And today we find out whether the future of our society is best off in the hands of government |
| 0:28.4 | science done for the public good or big business out to make a buck. |
| 0:34.4 | It comes to us from Reborder Simon Adler and Annie McEwan. |
| 0:37.4 | Okay, the only thing I'm going to ask Annie is that you stay like right up on your mic. |
| 0:40.4 | Yeah, okay, Simon. |
| 0:41.4 | Not a problem. |
| 0:42.4 | Okay, so we're here to talk to you guys about the thing you talk about when you don't know |
| 0:48.4 | what else to talk about, which is the weather. |
| 0:52.4 | That's great. |
| 0:54.4 | But while talking about the weather, it might be the smallest of small talk, we're going |
| 0:59.9 | to start with a story where it was anything but it's early June 1944. |
| 1:09.4 | World War II is raging and the Allies. |
| 1:16.4 | They're getting ready for Operation Overlord, which is the D-Day landing. |
| 1:21.4 | What the largest invasion in human history. |
| 1:24.4 | And not to put it to find a point on it. |
... |
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