George Cressman, a former director of the National Weather Service, has died of pneumonia in Rockville, Md. He was 88.

Cressman, a pioneer in the use of computer technology to predict weather, died April 19, his wife of 32 years, Frances Cressman, told the New York Times.

Cressman was a civilian consultant for the Air Weather Service at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., where he worked on numerical weather prediction as part of a research group sponsored by the Navy, the Air Force and the United States Weather Bureau.

The agency, known as the Joint Numerical Weather Prediction Unit, was founded in 1954 with Cressman as its first director. The team's scientists developed the first program to produce forecasts on a routine basis derived from data gathered from around the world.

Cressman became director of the United States Weather Bureau in 1965. The agency was renamed the National Weather Service two years later.

George Parmley Cressman was born Oct. 7, 1919, in West Chester, Pa. He graduated from Pennsylvania State University, and earned a Ph.D. in meteorology from the University of Chicago.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by a brother, Earle, of Denver, and four children from his previous marriage, to Nelia Hazard.

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