The Woman Whose Invention Helped Win a War — and Still Baffles Weathermen
Her work long overlooked, physicist Joan Curran developed technology to conceal aircraft from radar during World War II
By Irena Fischer-Hwang
November 28, 2018
On June 4, 2013, the city of Huntsville, Alabama was enjoying a gorgeous day. Blue skies, mild temperatures. Just what the forecasters had predicted.
But in the post-lunch hours, meteorologists started picking up what seemed to be a rogue thunderstorm on the weather radar. The “blob,†as they referred to it, mushroomed on the radar screen. By 4 PM, it covered the entire city of Huntsville. Strangely, however, the actual view out of peoples’ windows remained a calm azure.
The source of the blob turned out to be not a freak weather front, but rather a cloud of radar chaff, a military technology used by nations all across the globe today. Its source was the nearby Redstone Arsenal, which, it seems, had decided that a warm summer’s day would be perfect for a completely routine military test.
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/woman-whose-invention-helped-win-warand-still-baffles-weathermen-180970900/#zuZRbXVZUf0sZIKa.99
