Career
Born in Pennsylvania, Hope served as a flight navigator in the United States Army Air Forces during World World War World War II After returning to civilian life, Hope earned a degree in meteorology from the University of Illinois. In 2002, he died from complications of an open heart surgery. He then worked as a forecaster with the in Memphis, Tennessee, for thirteen years.
When astronaut John Glenn made his famous spaceflight in 1962, Hope served on the mission"s meteorological team
In 1968, Hope began working for the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida. During this time, he developed a theorem commonly known as the John Hope Rule.
lieutenant consists of two sub-theorems. One, that if a system is not a bona fide tropical storm before crossing the Windward Islands, or the Lesser Antilles, it will not survive the trek across the Eastern Caribbean Sea.
If the wave is still present, formation in the Western Caribbean is possible.
The second portion is, that if the structure of a wave or storm is good, never discount it or write it official After retiring from thirty two years with the, John Hope joined when it was created in 1982. With his calm on-air demeanor, Hope became quickly recognized as "s in-house hurricane expert.
In 1989 when Hurricane Hugo struck South Carolina, Hope spent several hours on the air warning the channel"s viewers of the approaching hurricane"s danger.
Some cr Hope with saving lives during the storm due to his tireless on-air efforts. He would continue to appear on-air for the channel"s Tropical Updates until his death, by which time full-time duties had passed to Steve Lyons.
Hope was interred at Riverside Cemetery in Macon, Georgia. In 1969, Hope"s daughter graduated from high school, so he added her name to the list of names to be used for hurricanes that year (at that time, there was no organized list of assigned names to be used, the only requirements were that the names had to be female – male names were not used at that time – in alphabetical order, and not otherwise retired).
He had no way of knowing at the time that the storm that would take his daughter"s name – Camille – would become one of the most powerful and destructive hurricanes to ever hit the United States when it slammed into Mississippi as a Category five hurricane.