Forecast landmarks

Events, inventions and discoveries in weather forecasting

1844

The invention of telegraph gave an opportunity to communicate weather information

1848

Smithsonian Institution used the new telegraph networks to send bad weather alerts

1859

Scientist Robert Fitzroy drew the first synoptic charts, which give hourly updates on storms and other climatic systems

1873

The first congress of the International Meteorological Organization was held in Vienna, and attended by 20 governments

1897-98

Vilhelm Bjerknes identified seven variables that define the state of atmosphere at a given point: density, pressure, temperature, humidity and three components of wind velocity

1922

Mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson organised a forecast factory of 64,000 people to calculate real time weather changes by hand; it turned out wrong

1918

Scientist Vilhelm Bjerknes set up the Forecasting Division of Western Norway; later called the Bergen School; and, its methods would be adopted by weather agencies

1951

The International Meteorological Organization was rechristened as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and was designated as a specialised agency of the United Nations

1950

The first successful numerical prediction was calculated using a digital computer by meteorologists, mathematicians and programmers from USA and Norway

1955

The first operational numerical weather predictions started as a joint project of the army, navy and weather agencies

1954

A rocket launched from White Sands in USA crash landed, but captured the first clear snapshot of a tropical storm over the Gulf of Mexico

1960

A rocket launched TIROS I (Television Infrared Observation Satellites), the first experimental weather satellite.This polar orbiter or a Low Earth Orbit satellite takes 102 minutes to circle the Earth

1961

Information by TIROS II about Hurricane Carla helped evacuate 350,000 people along the Gulf of Mexico

1966

The first geostationary weather satellite was launched which could continuously observe one particular region of the Earth

1962

US meteorologist Harry Wexler worked with Soviet counterpart Viktor Bugaev on a report proposing a World Weather Watch

1991

Jeff Masters, a graduate student at the University of Michigan, USA, published the first weather forecast on the internet and started a movement of what is now called Weather Underground

2015

The Weather Company published the first weather forecast without human intervention