Episode description
Episode description
Our First Guest WeatherBrain is the great grand-niece of Wilson "Snowflake" Bentley, the Vermont farmer who first photographed snowflakes. Sue Richardson, welcome to the show!
Wilson Bentley was born on February 9, 1865 in the town of Jericho, Vermont. A farmer by trade, he attracted worldwide attention with his pioneering work in the area of photomicrography. Most notable in his life long work with rain, dew and frost, was his extensive work with snowflakes. On January 15, 1885 he became the first person to photograph a single snow crystal. He would go on to photograph well over 5000 snow crystals (never finding two the same), and his documentation of this work advanced the study of meteorology in his time. His photomicrographs were acquired by institutes of higher learning all over the world and his writings on these subjects were published in many journals and magazines including Scientific American, National Geographic and The National Weather Service Research Journal. In November of 1931, his book “Snow Crystals” was published by McGraw/Hill and is still in print today. Shortly after, on December 23, 1931, Wilson Bentley died at the family farmhouse in Jericho where he lived his entire life. Because of his wonderful work with snow crystals, he became affectionately know as “Snowflake” Bentley.
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- January 10th snowstorm totals (02:00)
- January 15, 1885: The world's first photograph of a snow crystal (10:30)
- Various shapes and sizes of snow dendrites (16:00)
- Comparisons/similarities to Dr. Ted Fujita (17:30)
- Snowflake Bentley's ice crystal analysis and perspective (41:00)
- Jericho Historical Society and exhibit (43:30)
- Collecting snowflakes and collecting "smiles" (50:30)
- Tricks of the trade in genealogy (53:30)
- AMS Annual Meeting in New Orleans (01:10:00)
- Los Angeles fires (01:11:30)
- The Astronomy Outlook with Tony Rice (01:00:55)
- This Week in Tornado History With Jen (01:04:08)
- E-Mail Segment (01:05:55)
- National Weather Round-Up (01:18:45)
- and more!
Web Sites from Episode 991:
"The Snowflake Man: A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley" by Duncan Blanchard
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James Aydelott - AIR7 maps out Altadena damage from Eaton Fire
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Jen Narramore - Snowflake Man Bio - Snowflake Bentley
Rick Smith - Out
Neil Jacobs - Out
Troy Kimmel - Out
Kim Klockow-McClain - Out
Bill Murray - Watch Duty Wildfire Maps and Alerts
James Spann - AMS 2025 Hashtag #AMS2025
The WeatherBrains crew includes your host, James Spann, plus other notable geeks like Troy Kimmel, Bill Murray, Rick Smith, James Aydelott, Jen Narramore, Dr. Neil Jacobs, and Dr. Kim Klockow-McClain. They bring together a wealth of weather knowledge and experience for another fascinating podcast about weather.