The founder of scientific weather prediction in Great Britain was Admiral Robert FitzRoy—the same talented officer who explored the coasts of South America in the Beagle and had Darwin for a fellow-voyager—and his first predictions were issued in 1861 from the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, which was under his charge. The boldness of this pioneer undertaking is not easily realized by the present generation, which is accustomed to see the official weather forecast at the head of every daily newspaper. Weather prognostication had previously been the undisputed province of charlatans and quacks. For a civilized government to embark upon such an enterprise must have seemed, to the educated public, very much like charging the Astronomer Royal with the duty of casting horoscopes.
A GLASS WEATHER MAP OF THE UNITED STATES WEATHER BUREAU
(Courtesy of U. S. Weather Bureau.)
There is much virtue in a name. A few years ago the United States Bureau of Fisheries persuaded the American public to eat dogfish by changing its name to “grayfish.” Similarly, FitzRoy induced the British public to take his weather predictions seriously by calling them “forecasts.” The name has stuck; and nowadays, throughout the English-speaking world, the expression “weather forecast”—except as applied comprehensively to predictions of the “long-range” variety—means something decidedly less chimerical than the average weather prophecy.
THE SUN DRAWING WATER
(Photograph by P. K. Budlong.)
It is still necessary, however, to emphasize the distinction. There are probably many people among us, well above the illiterate level, who have no clear idea as to what constitutes a scientific weather forecast. The distinguishing feature of such a prediction, apart from the fact that it is made by a trained meteorologist, is that it is, in all cases, based upon a weather map.
The forecasting machine is a big one, with its human gear spread over a wide territory. Eventually it will be spread over the entire globe, and then we shall have better forecasts. A little manual entitled “The Weather Map,” published by the British Meteorological Office, says: