Weather Turns Witness in Forensic Meteorology

It's a rainy day in Southern California, and, as a mystery fanatic cozy indoors with a good who-done-it, it started me thinking about weather and murder--and the interesting role of "forensic meteorology" in investigations. I'm clearly not alone because The Weather Channel debuted its own true-crime series "Storm of Suspicion" last year, highlighting the role played by weather science in solving murders. For example, in one case, a husband claims that his wife was murdered, and he was knocked unconscious, by an intruder. Yet forensic meteorological analysis showed the lawn around the house would have been so soggy with dew at the time of the murder that an intruder would have left clear footprints. Lack of any footprints helped clinch the husband's arrest. In another case, footprints betrayed a murder-as-accident scheme: A woman is found dead at the wheel of her crashed SUV after apparently skidding off an icy road--until footprints in the snow are spotted walking away from the wreck. Yet another example hinges on lack of snow: An accused murderer claims he sustained a scratch on his hand while snowboarding and not during the attack--only it was raining at the time of the alleged snowboarding, melting a slight snowpack and leaving slopes too bare for the sport. The weather is such a common factor in tragic events that forensic meteorologists have been used as expert witnesses in murders, suicides, bombings, vehicle accidents, bad aircraft landings, property insurance disputes, hurricane and flood damage claims, building collapses, slip-and-fall insurance scams, and much more. Unfortunately, as global warming leads to more extreme and dangerous weather events, forensic meteorologists will be keeping busy! For an interesting article on how weather-related forensics contribute to solving crimes and settling legal disputes, see https://gizmodo.com/forensic-meteorologists-solve-crimes-youve-never-though-1586035339

Reading for Perspective on Our Wintry Storms

As I write, it's a rainy day in Southern California, which is what passes for "a major storm" here but nothing like the paralyzing snowstorms in the Northeast. Wintry weather events are reminders of nature's power and our vulnerability despite climate-controlled environments, fossil-fuel-powered transport and electronically-dependent communications. But such storms were even more devastating in the past. For example, younger family members can gain perspective with a childhood favorite, The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder, which is one of the more exciting Little House books as well as a fairly accurate portrayal of the terrible "Snow Winter" of 1880-1881 in the Dakotas. Or they can read Blizzard!--The Storm That Changed America by Jim Murphy. It's about the East Coast blizzard of March 1888, when wind-driven snow accumulated in 50-foot drifts in some places and lead to 400 deaths, 200 in New York City alone. The disruption of above-ground telegraph/telephone and rail led to changes such as underground communications lines and the first underground subway in Boston. For adult readers, there is the moving The Children's Blizzard by David Laskin. This cautionary tale covers the tragic Schoolhouse Blizzard that suddenly blasted the Great Plains in the afternoon of January 12, 1888, after an unseasonal warm morning that had schoolchildren forgoing heavy coats and gloves. It was called the Schoolhouse Blizzard because so many of the 500 or so dead were schoolchildren trying to walk home from one-room schoolhouses through blinding snow, with many found frozen just yards from shelter. For more historical perspectives, read about some other surprising weather impacts on human events: http://www.weather.com/news/news/7-strange-ways-weather-has-changed-history-20130921#/1