| The ship that gave us the weather forecast |
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In October 1859, four years after the fledgling Meteorological Office was formed, the passenger vessel Royal Charter was wrecked off the coast of Anglesey in the midst of a tempestuous storm. The ship was packed with almost 500 passengers, mostly miners returning from the Australian goldfields loaded with their bounty and within sight of home, only a few hundred feet from the shore, 459 people perished. The tragedy forced Captain Robert FitzRoy RN, as head of the Meteorological Office, to consider ways of being able to warn his fellow mariners of impending storms, which resulted in the first gale warning service. By 1861 he had established a network of 15 coastal stations from which visual gale warnings could be provided for ships at sea. Observers would erect canvas-covered wooden frames in the shape of cones or drums, variously combined and arranged to denote the direction from which strong winds could be expected. At night lanterns were used to light up the outline of the shapes. For the first time shipmasters did not necessarily have to bring their vessels into port for news of the weather. FitzRoy believed it would be possible to foretell conditions or, as he put it, 'forecast' the weather by gathering their information. Crucially, the invention of the electric telegraph in the 1870s meant information could be exchanged much more quickly, increasing the usefulness of the forecasts. Wireless telegraphy in 1901 opened up the possibilities for international exchange of weather information and was the platform for the pre-eminent position of the modern Met Office. |
