Weather forecasting

Weatherman redirects here. If you're looking for the revolutionary communist Weather Underground Organization, see Weathermen

History of weather forecasting

Many peoples livelihoods and indeed lives are strongly influenced by the weather. In the past, this was probably more true than it is today. For millennia people have tried to predict what the weather would be like a day or a season in advance. In 650 BC, the Babylonians predicted the weather from cloud patterns. In about 340 BC, Aristotle described weather patterns in Meteorologica. The Chinese were predicting weather at least as far back as 300 BC.

Related Topics:
Aristotle - Meteorologica

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Ancient methods of weather forecasting usually relied on experience to spot patterns of events. For example, they noticed that if the sunset gave a particularly red sky, then the following day brought fair weather. This experience accumulated over the generations to produce weather lore. However, not all of these predictions prove reliable and many of them have since been found not to stand up to rigorous statistical testing.

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It was not until the invention of the telegraph in 1837 that the modern age of weather forecasting began. Before this time, it had not been possible to transport information about the current state of the weather any faster than a steam train, however the telegraph allowed reports of weather conditions from a wide area to be received almost instantaneously. This allowed forecasts to be made by knowing what the weather conditions were like further upwind.

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The two men most credited with the birth of forecasting as a science were Francis Beaufort (remembered chiefly for the Beaufort scale) and his protegé Robert Fitzroy (developer of the Fitzroy Barometer). Both were influential men in British Naval and Governmental circles, and though ridiculed in the press at the time, their work gained scientific credence, was accepted by the British Navy and formed the basis for all of today's weather forecasting knowledge.

Related Topics:
Francis Beaufort - Beaufort scale - Robert Fitzroy - Fitzroy Barometer

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Great progress was made in the science of meteorology during the 20th century which allowed understanding of atmospheric processes. The idea of numerical weather prediction (NWP) was presented by Lewis Fry Richardson in 1922. However, computers fast enough to complete the vast number of calculations required to produce a forecast before the event had occurred did not exist at that time. It was not until, 1970?s that NWP became operational in forecasting agencies across the world.

Related Topics:
Meteorology - 20th century - Numerical weather prediction - Lewis Fry Richardson

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