'Mares' tails and mackerel scales': The many bizarre ways humans have tried to predict the weather

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Each weather forecast is the culmination of centuries of science, mathematics and technology.

Around 650 BCE, there are records of the Babylonians attempting to predict short-term weather movements by observing the clouds and astrological signs.

"[People] had all these sorts of sayings to help them predict what was going to happen … A famous one is 'mares' tails and mackerel scales make tall ships take in their sails'," he"The 'mares' tails' is a cloud formation we [now] call cirrostratus and the 'mackerel scales' are what we [now call] altocumulus clouds — both those sorts of clouds are associated with approaching cold fronts.

In the early 19th century, British Royal Navy officer Sir Francis Beaufort developed the wind force scale to classify wind speeds. Then following a major shipwreck off the coast of Wales in 1859, Beaufort's protégé Robert FitzRoy was the first to make daily, public weather predictions, which he called "forecasts."

For the first time, humans could observe weather systems moving from one location to another in real time.Neville Nicholls, an emeritus professor at Monash University's School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment, says the work of these early forecasters was admirable, but "it was really just about extrapolating the movement of storms."

 

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Not much better today.

And absolutely useless climate models.

Listen to the birds. Before a storm, it's silent. When you hear then birds again, you know it's ok. So protect birds.

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