Abbe, Cleveland

Related Category: Weather and Climate: Biographies

(ăb´ē), 1838–1916, American meteorologist, b. New York City; brother of Robert Abbe. He was the first official daily weather forecaster in the United States. Abbe studied astronomy at the Univ. of Michigan, under B. A. Gould at Cambridge, Mass., and in Pulkovo, Russia. As director of the Cincinnati Observatory, he inaugurated daily weather predictions based on telegraphic reports. This work prompted the establishment of the national weather service, under the Signal Corps (1870), which Abbe joined in 1871; from 1891 to 1916 he served in the U.S. Weather Bureau.