Who’s the greatest meteorologist who ever lived? The G.O.A.T.?

(This post is a bit longer, and a bit different from the usual… my apologies in advance.)

When I was growing up, “goat” was a somewhat derogatory term. Part of this stemmed from the qualities of goats themselves. They’re considered more utilitarian than charismatic. The positives? They can live on practically anything. They are a source of food (milk, yogurts, cheeses, etc.) and can provide meat and skins at the end. The negatives? They are a bit contrary.

But in my time there was also a negative Biblical connotation. You’d say someone was the goat of this or that sorry incident as a shorthand for scapegoat, the Jewish sacrificial animal that, though innocent, ceremonially took on all the sins of the people and then was banished into the wilderness. (There wasn’t such a thing as scapesheep, or scapecow, or scapechicken.)

But today’s world of sport has turned things around, given us the very positive acronym GOAT (Greatest-Of-All-Time). That of course occasions debates. Do you apply the label to Pele, or Lionel Messi? To Michael Jordan, or LeBron James? Babe Ruth, or Aaron Judge? Jack Nicklaus, or Tiger Woods? Billie Jean King or Serena Williams?

You get the idea.

In our circle, that might prompt the question – who was the greatest meteorologist of all time? There’s no shortage of candidates. With apologies to potential names I’ve omitted for lack of space, here are a few names; some familiar, some less so. In no particular order, Vilhelm Bjerknes, Jule Charney, Carl-Gustaf Rossby, Ed Lorenz, Joanne Simpson, Warren Washington, Eunice Foote, Harry Volkman, … or (substitute your personal favorite here).

Or you could go back a bit further in history to C.H.D. Buys Ballot or John Dalton or Gabriel Fahrenheit or Anders Celsius or (perhaps stretching a bit) to Robert Boyle.

But allow me to make the case for Elijah the Tishbite – a Biblical prophet who lived during the reign of King Ahab (9^th century BC).

Elijah was known as a miracle worker – and what could be more miraculous than making accurate weather forecasts some three thousand years ago, in an era lacking instrumentation, radars and satellites, and mathematics? But that is what he did. His very first forecast was a seasonal to interannual outlook – a forecast problem so difficult it challenges the best capabilities of meteorology today. Here’s the text:

Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, there will be neither dew nor rain in the next few years except at my word.” – I Kings 17:1 (NIV)

No dew or rain for a few years? In a world where the folk wisdom is don’t like the weather? – just wait five minutes. It’ll change. Yet Elijah’s forecast would verify.

Talk about bold. Even in ordinary circumstances of that time, such a forecast would require profound courage. In those days, false prophesy was considered a crime, a misrepresentation of God – and therefore calling for death by stoning. (A few years ago, when my wife Chris and I toured Israel, every time I would see a pile of rocks – the landscape was dotted with them – I’d wonder, the gravesite of an early weather forecaster?)

And these were no ordinary circumstances. Ahab was a particularly odious, vicious, idolatrous king. Immediately after making this forecast Elijah was forced to flee for his life. We’re told (continuing in 1^st Kings 17-18) that Elijah then spent a period of time in humiliation. He hid by a brook in the Kerith Ravine, east of the Jordan, where he was fed by ravens (not just any birds, but unclean birds, mind you) that brought him bread and meat in the mornings and evenings.

Of course (there was a drought!), the brook dried up. Elijah decamped to Zarephath (a heathen city), where he moved in with a widow and her son. They all would get by on a small amount of flour and oil that God replenished (miraculously) day by day.

More than two years passed. God instructs Elijah to present himself to Ahab (no small ask, since Ahab has been killing God’s prophets all the while and has been especially keen on dispatching Elijah as well).

Elijah does as instructed and asks Ahab to meet him at Mount Carmel, with all the people of Israel, and with a special invite to the political/religious leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel’s rule: Ahab’s 400 prophets of Baal and Jezebel’s 450 prophets of Asherah.

(Continuing in 1^st Kings 18),

So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. ²¹ Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.

²² Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. ²³ Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. ²⁴ Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

Then Elijah reveals his understanding of atmospheric electricity (bear with me). He invited the prophets of Baal to go first, in the morning. (Continuing from Chapter 18)

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” ²⁶ So they took the bull given them and prepared it.

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

²⁷ At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” ²⁸ So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. ²⁹ Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Now it’s Elijah’s turn:

³⁰ Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. ³¹ Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” ³² With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahsof seed. ³³ He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

³⁴ “Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. ³⁵ The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

You make the call. Was this all pure showboating? Did Elijah do this wholly to make God’s intervention more dramatic? Or did he also know what my meteorologist friends know, especially my colleagues from Colorado days – that the greatest lightning risk on high ground comes in the afternoons, and is enhanced by good electrical conductivity of that high ground, as enabled by soil moisture?

Back to the narrative.

³⁶ At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. ³⁷ Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

³⁸ Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

³⁹ When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Elijah seizes the moment:

⁴⁰ Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there.

He thus begins the trajectory of Ahab’s downfall (but that’s another story for another day).

We’ve seen the successful seasonal outlook. We’ve witnessed a possible application of atmospheric electricity for societal benefit. Elijah now demonstrates his chops as a short-term forecaster:

⁴¹ And Elijah said to Ahab, “Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.” ⁴² So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.

⁴³ “Go and look toward the sea,” he told his servant. And he went up and looked.

“There is nothing there,” he said.

Seven times Elijah said, “Go back.”

⁴⁴ The seventh time the servant reported, “A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.”

So Elijah said, “Go and tell Ahab, ‘Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.’”

⁴⁵ Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. ⁴⁶ The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.

There you have it: accurate seasonal forecasting, empirical understanding of atmospheric electrcity, pinpoint short-term forecasting, including quantitative precipitation forecasting (QPF), attention to risk comm and applications, and great personal courage in the face of galeforce political headwinds. My candidate for meteorological GOAT.

An aside on GOAT debates; the reason they’re both addictive and unsatisfying is that most GOAT candidates were nearly ideally suited for their particular time in history, but as history has moved forward, the skills demanded of athletes has changed. That has to be true for meteorologists as well. My bias? Generally favoring the more-current athletes. Seems to me athletics are growing more competitive with time, records are falling. So I’m thinking chances are good that the meteorologist GOAT is someone early-career or even still in school today — someone whose name most of us don’t know yet.

Anyhow, just thinking that today’s meteorologists (who might be forgiven for feeling a little bit of that Biblical-scapegoat tag on their backs) might find reason for both inspiration and encouragement in Elijah’s 3000-year-old example. He walked the walk.