Forensic meteorology takes step back from forecasts

On the job: Meteorologists testimony can be as persuasive as DNA,fingerprints,that are considered unimpeachable facts.

JOHN ELIGON

After the last of the record-setting rain had fallen in the New York area,those in the business of delivering weather forecasts on television got back to their normal routines,calling for mostly sunny days or the like.

But for forensic meteorologists,who use the science of weather to testify in court about what has already happened,rather than predict what will occur,business could soon see an uptick. Extreme weather often leads to property damage,which can evolve into legal proceedings.

In cases around the nation,meteorologists have played pivotal roles in determining guilt or innocence,or in establishing monetary damages. In fact,their testimony can be as persuasive as the types of scientific evidence,DNA and fingerprints,for instance,that are unimpeachable facts.

Wherever the data takes us,we just tell the truth, said Stephen Wistar,a senior forensic meteorologist for AccuWeather,whose experts have provided testimony in hundreds of courtrooms. Wistar,who works out of State College,Pennsylvania,said that in a case he worked on at least a decade ago,a man sued the Metropolitan Transportation Authority because a piece of ice broke through his cars windshield and struck one of his eyes when he was driving over the Triborough Bridge. The man claimed that the ice had come from an icicle that fell from the bridge; the authority said the ice flew off a passing truck. Based on an eyewitness account that the ice that landed in the car was clear,Wistar said,he testified that it had to have come from an icicle,because ice from a truck would have been opaque. Nonetheless,the jury found in favour of the authority,Wistar said.

Recently,the district attorneys office in Rensselaer County,New York,called a meteorologist to testify in the murder trial of Michael Mosley,who was accused of bludgeoning two people to death in Troy in 2002. Part of Mosleys alibi was that a cut on his hand was not suffered during the killings,but when he was snowboarding with his son.

But Howard Altschule,a meteorologist,testified for the prosecution that at the time Mosley said he was snowboarding,it was raining and there was no snow. The district attorney,Richard J McNally Jr,said Altschule was able to provide such detail,drawing on radar maps that allowed him to say precisely where and when rain was falling. Mosley was convicted of the murders,and his defence lawyer,Terence L Kindlon,credited Altschules testimony.