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