1. Forum
  2. Usenet
  3. SCI.LANG

  • First weather forecast offered in The Times (4/9/1860)

    From Ross Clark@21:1/5 to All on Wed Sep 4 22:47:09 2024
    (Well, wiki says 1861.) And all thanks to Robert Fitzroy -- yes, the one
    who took Charles Darwin along as a travelling companion on the Beagle,
    and was Governor of New Zealand for a couple of years. By this time he
    was a Rear Admiral and a member of the Royal Society. in 1854 he was
    appointed "Meteorological Statist to the Board of Trade". He used the
    telegraph to collect weather reports from all over the country, and
    started producing what seem at first to have been just "reports" of what
    the weather had been the previous day in various places. It's not clear
    from either Crystal or Wiki exactly when the predictive element came in.
    When it did, the term "weather-cast" was sometimes used, but eventually Fitzroy's preference, "forecast", became standard.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Aidan Kehoe@21:1/5 to All on Thu Sep 5 06:26:43 2024
    Ar an ceathrú lá de mí Méan Fómhair, scríobh Ross Clark:

    (Well, wiki says 1861.) And all thanks to Robert Fitzroy -- yes, the one who took Charles Darwin along as a travelling companion on the Beagle, and was Governor of New Zealand for a couple of years. By this time he was a Rear Admiral and a member of the Royal Society. in 1854 he was appointed "Meteorological Statist to the Board of Trade". He used the telegraph to collect weather reports from all over the country, and started producing what
    seem at first to have been just "reports" of what the weather had been the previous day in various places. It's not clear from either Crystal or Wiki exactly when the predictive element came in. When it did, the term "weather-cast" was sometimes used, but eventually Fitzroy's preference, "forecast", became standard.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy

    Unsurprising that someone with a naval background did this first. And great that weather forecasts are currently actually good!

    --
    ‘As I sat looking up at the Guinness ad, I could never figure out /
    How your man stayed up on the surfboard after fourteen pints of stout’
    (C. Moore)

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)