As a part of my plan to revise my weather book, I have been working on a chapter on the jet stream. I am thinking of using the passage below as a kind of epigraph. I am sending it along because it brings together two of the salient concerns of Our Glorious Leader. Comments, fact checks, grumpy comments always welcome.
*During the winter of 1944-5, in the last desperate days of World War II, the Japanese military launched hundreds of incendiary balloons into the jet stream, hoping to ignite fires in American forests. This ingenious scheme worked. Many balloons made the 5,000 mile trip and some even started small fires. However, the plan ultimately failed. For a large fire to be kindled by one of these devices, the ground had to be had to be dry, the temperature high, the humidity low, the water table depleted, all conditions that often occur during summer droughts. Winter, however, is the wet season in the American west. The same jet stream that brought in the balloons, also brought in waves of pacific moisture that soaked the ground and covered the high mountains in deep banks of snow. * *This bit of military history illustrates the relationship between the jet stream and the weather we all experience, day by day. The jet stream can initiate severe weather, can spark it, one might say, but only where conditions below have been primed. Its seeds can only flourish where the ground has been prepared. * -- Nicholas S. Thompson Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology Clark University nthomp...@clarku.edu https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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