Hurd C. Willett; Weather Forecaster

Hurd C. Willett, 89, who helped develop methods of forecasting weather trends. Willet’s five-day weather forecasting method was adopted by the U.S. Weather Bureau in 1939 and is still used in a more sophisticated form today. He was known for predicting the impact of sunspot activity on Earth’s weather over 20-year cycles. Willet joined the faculty of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1929 as part of a new meteorological section of the aeronautical engineering department. He retired from teaching in 1968 and continued as a researcher until 1988. On March 26 in Littleton, Mass., after a stroke.