Spotlighting: An Early USWB Office

( A daily feature, but not EVERY day!)

If you could walk into the Birmingham National Weather Service Forecast Office at Shelby County Airport and then, by magic walk into a Weather Bureau Office in the early 1900s, you would not believe it.

Back in those early days, Weather Bureau Offices had two rooms. The larger room contained one of those old-fashioned rolltop desks for the MIC (Meteorologist in Charge) The room also had two smaller desks for the two assistants, a stand-up desk for weather-map analysis and a display cabinet on which was located a “tripple register.”

Ah, yes, the tripple register! I remember it well at our office at Birmingham Airport even in the late 50s. The person coming on duty for the midnight shift had the responsibility of changing the chart exactly at midnight.

All furniture was solid oak. Above the main room was a three-story tower. On top of the tower, there was a rain gage, anemometer and wind vane, sunshine sensor, psychrometer, thermometers and a thermograph.

Of course, in those days, the USWB had no radar, no satellite, no storm spotters, no 33/40 Skywatchers and a very sparse network of reporting stations.

The word “tornado” was a no-no like it was an obsenity.

How times have changed! Having the official thermometers on a three-story tower would be a strict no-no now.

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