Essay: FORECAST: A Weatherman in the Sky

August 1980. Perched on his polar-orbiting platform 200 miles above the earth, the Weatherman in the Sky begins a routine scan of the earth's surface. Beyond the green necklace of the Antilles, Hurricane Clytemnestra begins to collapse, shredded by a continuous aerial barrage of silver-iodide seeds from U.S. planes. The weatherman flashes Moscow that intense hail is due to fall on Irkutsk by early afternoon, and the Russians quickly send up rockets laden with chemicals, melting the hail before it lifts the wheat fields. As for more mundane matters, vacationers on Cape Cod will have a clammy morning—but only until 10:40...

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