Featured timeline: History of Weather Research

Tiki-Toki Timeline Maker is very pleased to feature an Online Museum on the History of Weather Research. This beautiful and fascinating timeline is all about - you guessed it! - the weather, and how modern weather forecasting developed. It was created to mark the 20th anniversary of the World Meteorological Organization's World Weather Research Programme.

Who doesn't love a good chat about the weather? After exploring this timeline, I've gained a new appreciation for the humble weather report. Attempts have been made throughout history to predict the weather, but it's only since the 20th century that modern, rigorous, scientific weather forecasting has developed. This particular timeline starts in 1901, tracing the people, scientific developments, and institutions that supported the field's growth, and makes excellent use of video and other media to tell the story.

One story that stood out to me was "Richardson's fantastic forecast factory" from August 1922, where Lewis Richardson proposes creating a huge theatre in the shape of a globe with computers (which would have been people at that time, not the machines we have today) for every region using equations to calculate the weather. The way he describes the operation is very much a product of the world at that time, but also shows an enormous amount of vision.

The timeline is called the "Online Museum on the History of Weather Research", and exploring the timeline feels very much like having a saunter through a museum, stopping at the stories that grab your attention, listening to an interesting snippet here or there, and watching short videos that further expand the stories. As with a real museum, it's a great way to spend some time finding out about a topic that impacts us all.

As ever, if you know of any timelines that should be featured in future, get in touch with us at blog@tiki-toki.com.

Thanks for reading!