The telegraph and the first storm warnings
For the first time, news of a storm could travel faster than the storm itself.
Before the telegraph
Before about 1850, news moved only as fast as a horse or a ship. A hurricane moves at roughly 10–20 miles an hour, and usually nobody ahead of it knew it was coming until the sky and sea turned. Each town met it alone.
What changed
Samuel Morse's electric telegraph (first public line 1844, "What hath God wrought") sent messages over wire almost instantly. So reports could outrun the storm. If an observer down the coast saw the barometer falling and the wind swinging, a message could reach the next city hours or days ahead.
That made weather a network science. You can't see a storm's shape from one place, but with many simultaneous reports you can draw a map of pressure and wind and watch the system move. The US Army Signal Corps began national telegraphed weather reports in 1870; that service became the US Weather Bureau in 1891.
The catch
A warning is only as good as the people who decide whether to pass it on. The telegraph made the Cuban hurricane warnings possible, and human pride kept them from being heeded in 1900. See Benito Viñes and Galveston 1900.
Key facts
- Telegraph changed storm warnings: reports could outrun the storm
- Morse's first public line: 1844, "What hath God wrought"
- US national weather reports by telegraph began 1870 (Army Signal Corps); Weather Bureau 1891