

When was the first weather forecast made?

According to the BBC the first weather forecast was made 150 years ago today. A nice film clip about this is provided on the BBC website here.

Does anyone know when the first weather forecast was made in the US?

Chris Thorncroft

5 Responses

  1. Chris Colose says:

    As far as I can tell, this was done in February 1871. This was led by Prof. Cleveland Abbe, under the dictates of the army (which is generally the case for weather/climate history even until WW2)

    See Potter, Sean. Weatherwise, Vol. 62, 1, pp. 12-13, 2009 for this particular forecast…

    There is an extended history of forecasting here (this is mostly a climate resource, but touches on the beginning efforts of weather forecasting using more sophisticated tools based on thermodynamics and dynamics; the first forecast attempting to make use of the primitive equations in 1922 ended in failure).

  2. Henk Lankamp says:

    There is a nice book about the early years of meteorology:
    “Storm Warning – The Origins of the Weather Forecast” by Pauline Halford (Sutton Publishing Ltd).
    The dates mentioned above are correct. In her book Pauline writes about a first storm warning in 1860 by Buys Ballot (Dutch), but this seems to be incorrect; it was in 1864 actually. So the first warning was issued by FitzRoy in 1861.

    The book tells a fascinating story about the discovery of the pressure-wind relationship, some theoretical thinking about weather systems, the hard way to collect weather data (soon boosted by the telegraph), the first weather map, the first warnings and forecasts, founding of some national weather institutes and the start of international cooperation.

  3. mark says:

    Chris, Would entries in the (Old) Farmer’s Almanac count as weather predictions?

    From Wikipedia:

    The first Old Farmer’s Almanac (then known as The Farmer’s Almanac) was edited by Robert B. Thomas, the publication’s founder.
    There were many competing almanacs in the 18th century, but Thomas’s upstart was a success. In its second year, distribution tripled to 9,000. The cost of the book was six pence (about four cents).

    To calculate the Almanac’s weather predictions, Thomas studied solar activity, astronomy cycles and weather patterns and used his research to develop a secret forecasting formula, which is still in use today. Other than the Almanac’s prognosticators, few people have seen the formula. It is kept in a black tin box at the Almanac offices in Dublin, New Hampshire.

  4. Chris Thorncroft says:

    An interesting comment. I am of course not privy to the “secret recipe” but I suspect that “climatology” is a major ingredient (someone can correct me if I am wrong). In January this year I could have forecast that August 2nd was likely to be a hot day but that is not a “weather forecast”. The science of weather prediction is based on analyzing the the state of the atmosphere today and using this knowledge to predict what will happen in the following hours or days. In the past this would be based on experience and scientific knowledge. Now this is dominated by numerical weather prediction (NWP) activities where computer programs are used to make the forecast. The computer programs solve mathematical equations based on known physics of the atmosphere in order to predict the future. I will blog on the science of NWP in the future.

  5. mark says:

    Chris, thank you for your answer.