
José Fernández Partagás (left) and Bob Burpee at the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Labs, as Hurricane Andrew approached landfall, 1992.
Photo by Peter Dodge, courtesy National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
In August, I began working on our annual archival survey with the other archivists on staff. For the past 20+ years, the Niels Bohr Library & Archives has maintained the International Catalog of Sources (ICOS
As I was adding records to ICOS, I couldn’t help but learn about the individuals and organizations who were the subjects of these archival collections. One particular collection
José J. Fernández Partagás died in the Otto G. Richter Library of the University of Miami on August 23, 1997.
I read the sentence multiple times to make sure I was reading it correctly. He died *in* the library? Surely, this was a mistake and a cataloger had accidentally pasted the name of the library instead of a city name. I investigated further, and sure enough, the subject of the collection, meteorologist and hurricane researcher José Fernández Partagás
Throughout the month of August as I continued surveying and cataloging new collections, I couldn’t stop thinking about the José Fernández Partagás Papers. The Atlantic hurricane season was also ramping up (August through October are traditionally the months when the most hurricanes and tropical storms occur
Born in Havana, Cuba in May, 1935, Fernández Partagás earned both his Bachelor degree in science and letters and his doctorate in physics and mathematics in Havana, at the Edison Institute and University of Havana, respectively. Fleeing his country after the Cuban Revolution, he emigrated to the United States in 1961, where he obtained his Master of Science in Meteorology from the Florida State University. He returned to the Caribbean to work for the Civil Aviation Division of the Bahamian Weather Service for a couple of years, before accepting a research position at the University of Miami, where he would work for 20+ years.
During his long career, he published numerous academic papers - in both Spanish and English - and occasionally appeared on Spanish radio and television as a guest meteorologist. His papers and records, donated by Fernández Partagás and held by the University of Miami, however, focus on his later, less traditional, meteorological work.
José Fernández Partagás (left) and Bob Burpee at the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research Labs, as Hurricane Andrew approached landfall, 1992.
Photo by Peter Dodge, courtesy National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration
In his retirement, he began working with the National Hurricane Center (NHC) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) on a research project to compile information from microfilmed newspapers containing ship logs and landfall weather reports to reconstruct historical cyclone tracks from as far back as 1850. He spent years at the University of Miami Otto G. Richter Library, scouring through reports
Dr. Fernández Partagás in Richter Library, March 1994.
José Fernández Partagás Papers, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida
This work must have been incredibly tedious, but Fernández Partagás knew that its value was well worth the effort; by adding these storm records to The Atlantic Hurricane Database (HURDAT), meteorologists can have a more accurate view of past storms and can better assess and predict future storms and their impacts. According to Chris Landsea
Storm data gathered by Fernández Partagás has been useful to non-meteorologists as well - author Erik Larson cited this data
By August of 1997, Fernández Partagás had made his way through 60+ years of records and was diligently recording newspaper data of the 1910’s when he passed away, in the Richter Library on the University of Miami campus, where he did most of his work.
With no living family to claim his body, his NHC colleagues wanted to give him a proper send-off, fitting of a scientist who made it his life’s mission to study tropical storms and hurricanes: they scattered his ashes into Hurricane Danielle deep in the Atlantic Ocean. NHC researcher Peter Black, describes the meteorologist and his “burial” in this 1998 archival clip from NPR’s All Things Considered:
“Researcher’s Ashes Scattered In Hurricane.” 09/05/1998. Radio. All Things Considered. NPR.
Although José Fernández Partagás is not a household name, his legacy lives on through his past work and the research still being conducted utilizing his data. November has come to a close, meaning the 2019 hurricane season is officially over. Meteorologists are preparing to add a new years’ worth of hurricane data to HURDAT, alongside the historic data gathered by Fernández Partagás. As an archivist, I place a high importance on preserving and sharing the stories of all types of physicists and scientists, which often happens through preserving and sharing of the work they’ve done and the records they leave behind. José Fernández Partagás’ collection and work resides in the Cuban Heritage Collection
José Fernández Partagás, September 1994; Dr. Fernández Partagás’ name (4th from the bottom) greets visitors at the entrance of the planetarium in Havana, Cuba.
José Fernández Partagás Papers, Cuban Heritage Collection, University of Miami Libraries, Coral Gables, Florida; Photo by Professor Luis Enrique Ramos Guadalupe, Fundación Fernando Ortiz, Havana, courtesy of Gladys Gámez-Rossié
Note: Special thanks to NPR’s Research, Archives, and Data Strategy team
AIP ICOS record: https://aip.ipac.sirsidynix.net/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=15H53989800QB.4…
University of Miami student blog: https://medium.com/@kabidegeer_12690/the-man-who-became-a-hurricane-2ba44d030c5a
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, p. 2907: https://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0477-78.12.2900
Clamshell Alliance Poster, 1978
Image from Al Giordano Collection (MS 604). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries
P.S. - Did you know that there was an anti-nuclear coalition called the Clamshell Alliance