Science: Calamitous Cleo

Nothing illustrated the worth of overhead weather surveillance better than Tiros' advance warning fortnight ago that dangerous winds were gathering force in the Atlantic, 1,100 miles southeast of Puerto Rico.

To experts, photographs flashed down from the orbiting satellite suggested a big blow 60 miles across. Sure enough, within two days Hurricane Cleo was island-hopping toward Miami, and before the storm dwindled off the Georgia coast at week's end, it had left behind 150 deaths and a jagged line of destruction that cost property owners more than $300 million.

Blocked Vision. The French island...