Anyone who watched the incredible computer-generated graphics of Hurricane Ike nearing the coast of Texas this month might find this book quite fascinating. It traces the history of weather prediction and the development of the science of meteorology over the past 200 years and an interesting story it is, replete with colorful individual geniuses who pushed the frontiers of knowledge forward -- and dumb bureaucrats and politicians who tried to block them at every turn.

The book begins with Benjamin Franklin who was the first to notice that the winds in a storm moving northwards might actually be blowing in a southerly direction. But most of the other men profiled in this book who made the most striking contributions to meteoroloy -- Americans, Britons and most noticeably Norwegians and Swedes -- I had never heard of.

There was the chemist Luke Howard who classified the different kinds of clouds and gave them the names we know today -- cumulus, stratus, nimbus.

William Redfield was not a trained scientist but in 1821 the New Yorker was the first to describe the circular motion of winds in a hurricane. Twenty years later, Elias Loomis, a professor of mathematics and philosophy, was the first to produce a weather map. But for much of the 19th century, weather forecasting faced tremendous opposition from those who said it was contrary to God's will as well as producers of popular almanacs who faced the loss of their business.

Robert FitzRoy, who captained the Royal Navy ship The Beagle which took Charles Darwin on his historic voyage to the Galapagos, coined the word "forecasting." But progress in the United States ground to a halt after the Civil War when weather prediction was placed under the control of the Army. Things grew even worse at the end of the 19th century when political appointees hostile to science took over in the administration of Grover Cleveland.

The comparison to today's debate over global warming and the Bush administration's refusal for so many years to admit the problem, much less grapple with it, are too obvious to be ignored, though the author of this book does not belabor them.

The consequences of blindly ignoring science were graphically and tragically demonstrated in the great hurricane that destroyed Galveston in 1900. Isaac Cline was in charge of weather forecasts in the city, though he was not a leading scientist. He baldly stated, based on no reliable data, there was no chance of a hurricane striking Galveston. He encouraged the city fathers to demolish the sea wall protecting the city. The government also took the distastrous step of denying weather watchers in Cuba access to the telegraph system because "hurricane warnings unnecessarily riled the natives." After the disaster in which he lost his own wife, Cline launched a coverup, falsely stating that he had posted hurricane warnings -- and emerged a hero.

There are many fascinating stories in this book which is a stark warning of what happens when politicians and bureaucrats hostile to science start their meddling. In 1944, there was a tremendous battle between two forecasters, one renowned scientist Sverre Petterssen and the other Irving Krick, a charlatan who had somehow built himself a career in the field. They disagreed over the weather on the day set aside for the D-Day landings in Normandy. Thank God Petterssen prevailed. If General Eisenhower had listened to Krick, who assured him the weather would be fine, the landings would have been a disaster. Thankfully he heeded Petterssen's advice and postponed the landings by one day.

There are some faults with this book. The writing can be a bit plodding and the characters hardly burst to life from the page. Still, I found it wonderfully interesting and recommend it to anyone who would like to know about the nightly weather forecasts we now take for granted.

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