Humans have always sought to see the future and have called on many aids, from the movements of the stars to the fuzzy midsection of a woolly bear caterpillar (a wider brown band supposedly meant a milder winter). Sometimes the divination is all in fun; remember those paper “cootie catcher” fortune-tellers from childhood? But at other times, our lives depend on it.
For millennia, humans have closely observed changes in the weather in an attempt to deduce patterns that might help predict the next drought, flood or hurricane. By about 650 B.C., the Babylonians had developed weather predictions based on the appearance of clouds and other atmospheric phenomena. Aristotle followed with Meteorologica, a treatise based on his observations of the weather as well as his study of astronomy and chemistry.
Starting in the Renaissance, scientists invented tools to more precisely monitor weather, forming the basis of atmospheric physics. Nicholas of Cusa designed a hygrometer for measuring humidity in the 15th century; Galileo followed with an early version of a thermometer. By 1643, Evangelista Torricelli had invented a barometer to measure atmospheric pressure.
As people around the world shared observations and data, atmospheric patterns emerged, but prediction remained a challenge. In 1922, mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson tried to calculate a forecast eight hours into the future — and it took him six weeks. He then estimated that it would take 64,000 human “computers” working together in one room to provide timely weather forecasts.