{{Short description, Privately-owned weather research institute
The Travelers Weather Research Center (1954-1961) was the world's first privately-owned research institute for the scientific study of
weather
Weather is the state of the atmosphere, describing for example the degree to which it is hot or cold, wet or dry, calm or stormy, clear or cloudy. On Earth, most weather phenomena occur in the lowest layer of the planet's atmosphere, the ...
. It pioneered the use of statistical methods, mathematical models, and computers to improve
weather forecasting
Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology forecasting, to predict the conditions of the Earth's atmosphere, atmosphere for a given location and time. People have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia a ...
techniques, and was the first to state weather predictions in terms of probabilities ("20% chance of rain").
The Travelers Weather Research Center was established by J. Doyle DeWitt, president of the
Travelers Insurance Company
The Travelers Companies, Inc., commonly known as Travelers, is an American insurance company. It is the second-largest writer of U.S. commercial property casualty insurance, and the sixth-largest writer of U.S. personal insurance through indepen ...
, to more accurately estimate weather phenomena with relation to property damage, crop losses, and accidents. In 1955, the center hired Dr. Thomas F. Malone from
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...
to direct the center and oversee its long-term planning and research. Malone served as the center's director until 1957, and its research director from 1957-1964; he remained with the Travelers until 1970. Under Malone's direction, the center won the 1958 Gold Medal from the
New York Board of Trade
The New York Board of Trade (NYBOT, renamed ICE Futures US in September, 2007), is a physical commodity futures exchange located in New York City. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Intercontinental Exchange (ICE).
History
It originated in 1 ...
for its research. In the same year, he chaired a national committee that created "Preliminary
Plans for a National Institute for Atmospheric Research", which resulted in establishment of the
National Center for Atmospheric Research
The US National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR ) is a US federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) managed by the nonprofit University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and funded by the National Science Foundatio ...
.
In 1961 the Travelers Weather Research Center was subsumed into a new Travelers subsidiary, The Travelers Research Corporation, in anticipation of forthcoming federal regulations controlling air quality. In 1969, the subsidiary was incorporated as the Research Corporation of New England, also known as TRC, which continues to this day.