Isaac Monroe Cline (October 13, 1861 – August 3, 1955) was the chief meteorologist at the Galveston, Texas office of the US Weather Bureau from 1889 to 1901. In that role, he became an integral figure in the devastating Galveston Hurricane of 1900.
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Cline was born near Madisonville, Tennessee on October 13, 1861, to Jacob and Mary Cline. Cline attended Hiwassee College, then in 1882, joined the meteorology training program of the U.S. Army Signal Corps. Cline was first assigned to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he earned a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Arkansas in his spare time. He was then assigned to Fort Concho, then to Abilene, Texas where he met Cora May Ballew, whom he married.
In March 1889, a Texas section of the weather service was being established, and Cline was sent to Galveston to organize and oversee it. Cline stayed with the office when it became part of the U.S. Weather Bureau in the 1891 transfer from the Signal Corps to the Department of Agriculture. In 1892, Isaac's younger brother, Joseph Cline, also began work as a meteorologist at the Galveston Weather Bureau.
During his time in Galveston, aside from running the weather office, Cline also taught Sunday school at his church, was a professor at the local medical college and, in 1896, earned a doctor of philosophy degree from AddRan Male & Female College, now Texas Christian University.
Cline was the first meteorologist to provide reliable forecasts of freezing weather. He also provided some of the first available flood warnings on the Colorado and Brazos rivers. However, in 1891, he wrote an article in the Galveston Daily News in which he gave his official meteorological opinion that the thought of a hurricane ever doing any serious harm to Galveston was "a crazy idea". Many residents had called for a seawall to protect the city, but Cline's statement helped to prevent its construction.
He was proven tragically wrong on September 8, 1900, when the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 hit the island. Between 6,000-12,000 people were killed in what remains as the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. Cline's wife, Cora, who was pregnant with their fourth child at the time, was one of those who perished in the storm. Cline himself was nearly drowned, but he managed to survive, as well as to save his youngest daughter, six-year old Esther. Joseph Cline saved Isaac's other two daughters, 12-year old Allie May and 11-year old Rosemary.
In his autobiography, Isaac Cline claimed that he had taken it upon himself to travel along the beach and other low-lying areas warning people personally of the storm's approach. It is known that at around noon on September 8, he did breach Weather Bureau protocol by making a unilateral decision to issue a hurricane warning without first securing authorization from the Bureau's central office in Washington, D.C.. However, no eyewitnesses reported seeing Cline personally warning people along the beach. Writer Erik Larson argued in his book Isaac's Storm that Cline did not warn anyone in Galveston prior to the hurricane warning.
Shortly after the destruction of Galveston, the Weather Bureau began establishing regional forecasting centers. The center for the gulf coast was initially located in Galveston, with Isaac Cline as chief forecaster. In 1901, the center was moved to New Orleans, Louisiana, and Isaac Cline moved with it. There he developed a stellar reputation over the years, successfully forecasting significant levels of flooding in 1912, 1915 and 1927. In 1927, he published the book Tropical Cyclones, a collection of his research. In 1934, by that point well respected and highly admired in New Orleans, Cline received an honorary doctorate from Tulane University.
Cline retired from the Weather Bureau in 1935, remained in New Orleans and indulged his longtime interest in art, both by painting and by opening an art shop. He died in 1955 at the age of 93.