uring an early meeting of
the newly formed Royal
Society in 1663, a scheme
was proposed by John Wilk ins, the
old master of Trinity College,
Cambridge. Why didn’t they, he
suggested, make a study of the
weather in order to build “an art of
prognosticating the changes”?
It was a bold suggestion. The
weather was an elusive and chaotic
force that was barely understood.
No one knew how clouds stayed
aloft, or where storms came from;
what dew was or how rain was
formed. Most believed that
weather was a divine force beyond
all study. Some reminded Wilkins
of Elizabeth I’s courtier John Dee,
who acquired such a skill in
foretelling it that he was accounted
a witch.
This was where the science of
prediction stood at the beginning of
the Scientific Revolution. It was
deemed too complex or dangerous
by the Royal Society to be worthy
of study. Yet at the same time it was
nothing new. For as long as history
stretches back there have been
accounts of weather prediction. The
Bible speaks of red sky at night,while The Tower of the Winds in
Athens was built in 50 BC to help
visitors predict the weather
according to wind direction and its
associated deity.
Then there was weather lore, the
ever-evolving set of informal
knowledge that was handed down
the generations. From the 18th
Century onwards this weather
wisdom was increasingly collected
in books like The Shepherd Of
Banbury or Thomas Forster’s
Pocket Encyclopaedia. Forster
recorded how ants bustling over
their hills or swallows skimming
across lakes dipping their wings in
the water were both signs of rain.
Larks and cranes would soar high
in f ine weather. Dolphins
gambolled near boats before a
storm, and were therefore regarded
as unlucky omens for sailors.
For years, such obser vations were
the best that people had. Despite the
invention of the barometer and
thermometer during the 17th
Century, no clear atmospheric laws
had ever been derived from them.
Advances remained elusive until the
1800s, when atmospheric physics
began to take shape.HOW DO WE KNOW...
ATTEMPTING TO PREDICT THE VAGARIES OF THE CHAOTIC, TURBULENT
ATMOSPHERE HAS BEEN AN ONGOING ENDEAVOUR SINCE THE 1800S
WORDS: PETER MOORED
HOW TO FORECAST
THE WEATHER?
Elizabeth I was
impressed with
John Dee’s scientific
skills, and he
became one of
her advisersA new science
A pivotal moment came in the USA
in 1821 after a fierce hurricane hit
the eastern coast. Travelling amid
the wreckage, a New York
businessman called William C
Redfield noticed something odd. In
Connecticut, the trees had been
blown down pointing in a
northwesterly direction. But in
Massachusetts they had fallen to the
southeast. This suggested to
Redfield that the winds had
twisted 180 degrees in just 70
PHOTO: WELLCOME TRUST IMAGE LIBRARY