---
title: Know the weather up there!
url: https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/know-the-weather-up-there-1943/
description: 'Two-panel comic: Gooney tests the wind by licking a finger while colleagues launch a weather balloon beside him.'
section: Collection
---

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3. Know the weather up there!

[![Know the weather up there!, 1943 US poster: Two-panel comic](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/know-the-weather-up-there-1943.jpg)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/know-the-weather-up-there-1943.jpg)

# Know the weather up there!

Two-panel comic: Gooney tests the wind by licking a finger while colleagues launch a weather balloon beside him, then sits with injured crewmen outside an infirmary after a stormy flight. The verse says clear weather was what he always said. The technique is a fear-appeal of injury and embarrassment from ignoring forecast data.

## Propaganda techniques used in this poster

[Fear appeal](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/fear-appeal/)

## Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

```
GOONEY CHECKED WIND THE FINGER WAY
CLEAR WEATHER AHEAD IS WHAT HE’D ALWAYS SAY
WHEN STORMS AND BUMPS WERE MET INSTEAD
GOONEY BLUSHED AS THE CREW SAW RED.
KNOW THE WEATHER UP THERE!
INFIRMARY
[signature:] LANTZ
[imprint:] ☆ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1943—O—500830
```

[← Kill the black market with your ration stamps](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/kill-the-black-market-ration-stamps-1943/) [Know your onions →](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/know-your-onions-1943/)

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- [Miniature of Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont, Les Passages d'outremer (BnF Fr. 5594, fol. 19r)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/passages-doutremer-council-of-clermont-colombe-1474/) (France · 1474 · Testimonial, Fear appeal). Content note: Medieval religious imagery and a French text describing alleged killings and captivity of eastern Christians, as used to argue for the First Crusade; the text is shown as written.
- [Anacoana fut pendue sans raison (engraving in Le miroir de la cruelle et horrible tyrannie espagnole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/anacoana-hanged-miroir-tyrannie-espagnole-1620/) (Dutch Republic · 1620 · Fear appeal, Name-calling). Content note: Engraving of a hanged, bare-breasted Taino woman, burning huts and people being killed by Spanish soldiers.
- [Der Warner (broadsheet lampoon on the Jesuits after Breitenfeld and Rain)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/der-warner-anti-jesuit-broadsheet-1632/) (Holy Roman Empire · 1632 · Scapegoating, Fear appeal)
- [Sans-Culottes, feeding Europe with the Bread of Liberty (James Gillray)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sans-culottes-bread-of-liberty-gillray-1793/) (Kingdom of Great Britain · Jan 12, 1793 · Fear appeal, Name-calling)
- [Proclamation de Sonthonax en créole, Cap-Français (Proclamation of Commissioner Sonthonax in Creole)](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/sonthonax-proclamation-creole-1793/) (France · Aug 29, 1793 · Fear appeal, Scapegoating). Content note: Colonial-era proclamation on slavery and emancipation in Saint-Domingue; speaks of slaves, whips and 'Nègues' in period terms.
- [Gazette of the United States, "The Jeffersoniad" no. VIII, 14 August 1800](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/gazette-us-jeffersoniad-1800/) (United States · Aug 14, 1800 · Name-calling, Fear appeal)
- [Tyrants Prostrate, Liberty Triumphant (pro-Polk cartoon on Dorr), 1844](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/tyrants-prostrate-liberty-triumphant-polk-1844/) (United States · 1844 · Name-calling, Fear appeal). Content note: Speech balloons contain anti-Catholic and nativist wording ('the ruins of Popery') in the mouths of the Whig figures, written by a Democratic cartoonist and shown unaltered.
- [Brolej Žemajčiaj! (Brothers Samogitians!): hand-painted broken-cross poster](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/brolej-zemajciaj-broken-cross-1862/) (Russian Empire · 1862 · Fear appeal, Transfer)
