For those scanning through comments, the eponymous 'problem of American storms' was apparently an actual specific debate in the day...
>> The argument had arisen between William C. Redfield, a New York businessman, and a prominent meteorologist by the name of James Espy, and it centered on whether the motion of storms—hurricanes, blizzards, thunderstorms—in North America were rotational or centripetal in nature. This seemingly dry, theoretical debate had somehow blown up, generating a surprising amount of contention, ad hominem attacks, and national coverage as meteorologists in both the United States and Europe took sides, but definitive answers remained elusive.
... it fills me with satisfaction that people were still making ad hominem attacks on each other over matters esotetic in the early 1800s.
If anyone is going to get really upset and argue with someone to death over a hard technical issue in 1800s, they are likely of the same archetype who would do it in the 2023:
>> The argument had arisen between William C. Redfield, a New York businessman, and a prominent meteorologist by the name of James Espy, and it centered on whether the motion of storms—hurricanes, blizzards, thunderstorms—in North America were rotational or centripetal in nature. This seemingly dry, theoretical debate had somehow blown up, generating a surprising amount of contention, ad hominem attacks, and national coverage as meteorologists in both the United States and Europe took sides, but definitive answers remained elusive.
... it fills me with satisfaction that people were still making ad hominem attacks on each other over matters esotetic in the early 1800s.