Robert FitzRoy, who had captained the Beagle while Darwin collected finches, became Britain’s first official meteorologist, and in 1861 he started telling the public what the weather would do. He did not want to call it a prediction. Prediction and foretelling belonged to almanacs and fortune-tellers, and he was working from barometer readings sent in by telegraph. So he chose a plainer word, forecast, the way you might cast a line ahead of you and see where it lands. The first one ran in The Times on 1 August 1861.

It was mocked whenever it missed, which was often. FitzRoy died in 1865. A committee of scientists who had never trusted his methods reviewed the office and recommended it stop forecasting and go back to collecting numbers, and in May 1866 the public forecasts ended.

Then the complaints changed direction. Sailors and fishermen wanted the storm warnings back, and got them in 1867. The daily forecasts took until 1879. It seems to be how people treat anyone who tells them what is coming: they grumble at every wrong guess, and then they find out what it is like to step outside with nothing to go on.