In 1983, Meteorologist Julian Posey joined the Peace Corps and worked in Cameroon teaching trigonometry and algebra
MAPPING A CAREER
Weatherman lives whirlwind life
Sunday, July 11, 2004
By Christine L. Bordelon
Kenner bureau
For Julian Posey, the field of meteorology has been his epicenter since World War II, taking him around the world.
Hanging in his den in Metairie is a map of Posey Range in Antarctica -- named after him in 1965 by the National Science Foundation. He also has a flag he flew over the South Pole.
Posey spent 18 months in 1958-59 in Victoria Land, Antarctica, as a scientific leader for the National Science Foundation at the American South Pole Station, a highlight of his 40-year career in meteorology.
Posey said he studied glacierology on the South Pole with an international team of meteorologists, recording temperatures from -100 degrees to -6 degrees. During his tenure there, he also witnessed the launching of the first polar satellite.
Living in Antarctica was a far cry from his childhood as one of nine children in Henderson County, N.C., near Asheville. Born in 1916, Posey said he graduated from high school at age 16 and then farmed to help support his family. He also worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps on timber improvement projects.
In 1941, he was drafted by the Army during World War II. Posey was trained as a weather observer, plotting charts and learning codes at the Army Air Corps' School of Meteorology at Chanute Field, Ill.
"It was a very good school," Posey said. "The men who made the forecasts for war flights in Germany went to the school. We learned so much about climatology. With knowledge of air mass, you can predict the type of weather we will get. And, we had no computers then. We did all our forecasts by ourselves. I learned I was pretty good at it. By the time the war ended, I was ranked eighth-best" in forecasting.
Posey spent 18 months in England. When the war ended, he was transferred to McCook Field, Neb., and then to South Dakota, eventually being discharged in his home state of North Carolina.
After the war, he became a weather forecaster for Pan American World Airways. He was shipped to Brazil, where he met the woman he would marry, Ester, an interpreter at the airport.
After 18 months in South America, he returned to the States and began working for the Weather Bureau, now called the National Weather Service, in Raleigh, N.C. The National Weather Service made forecasts then four times a day, every six hours.
"I was making forecasts for the whole country," Posey said. "There were forecast offices for each state; 50 forecast stations nationwide. Any individual who called in to us got an answer about the weather."
He continued his education wherever he was stationed, using the G.I. Bill to study at North Carolina State University, and later earning a degree in meteorology from New York University. He took graduate courses at Georgetown University and the University of Maryland.
His final post with the National Weather Service was forecaster in charge of the New Orleans office, where he started work in 1972; he retired in 1982.
In 1983, Posey joined the Peace Corps and worked in Cameroon, Africa, teaching trigonometry and algebra.
Throughout his meteorology career, Posey said he had an avid interest in the sciences. He has published 25 scientific articles; 24 are in the Library of Congress.
When asked what he thinks about meteorology today, Posey said it really hasn't changed much except for the use of computers.
"We don't know any more about meteorology than we did 100 years ago," Posey said. "Then computers came in, and you could plug in everything faster to make a forecast. When you can tell the computer where all the mountains, all the creeks, the buildings are . . . the forecast will be more precise."
As for forecasting hurricanes, Posey said the models do a pretty good job with the path and rainfall amounts. But it's still not an exact science.
"If you make forecasts, you make mistakes. Nobody's perfect. It's a challenging thing to be able to do things that are so complex," Posey said.
. . . . . . .
Send e-mail to Christine Lacoste Bordelon at cbordelon@timespicayune.com or call 461-0437.
