Inventor of the modern weather forecast

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, Royal Navy (1805-1865) is best remembered today as master of HMS Beagle during the famous voyage of Charles Darwin (1831-36). There is little doubt that the voyage would have been less fruitful without FitzRoy’s presence. He served as Governor of New Zealand (1843-48). In 1854, FitzRoy was appointed as chief of a new department (the forerunner of the UK Meteorological Office) to deal with the collection of weather data at sea. The original goal was to provide masters with better wind charts so that sailing times could be reduced. His title was Meteorological Statist to the Board of Trade and he had a staff of three. He provided the captains of selected ships with tested instruments and paid them a small recompense for the data provided. He also arranged for barometers to be mounted in many UK ports so as to be available to sailors preparing for voyages. Following the terrible storm of October 1859, resulting in the sinking of over 100 ships in the Irish Sea and the loss of over 800 lives, FitzRoy realized that a means needed to be developed to predict future weather, which he called “forecasting the weather”. He established fifteen stations at ports around the UK, equipping them with weather recording instruments and with telegraph connections so that the data could quickly be transmitted to his office in London. In 1860, he introduced a system for hoisting cones in these ports to warn of potential storms. As his forecasts became more detailed in 1861 and later years, they became more popular. Soon, they were being printed in daily newspapers and people around the nation were planning their days based on the FitzRoy weather forecasts. When the forecasts were significantly different from the actual weather, pundits and newspaper editorials took him to task and he would issue short apologies. Regardless, the FitzRoy forecasts of the weather became “must” reading. Soon, his techniques were being used and refined by new meteorological offices in the capitals of nations throughout Europe and North America, followed by the entire world.