One of the best books I've read in ages. I'm a bit of a sucker for natural science stories, and human fallacy all bound up in the advancement of our understanding. Up there with 'The Wisdom of Birds' by Tim Birkhead for me.

Although it's bursting with familiar characters: Fitzroy of course, generations of Darwins (including the difficult Glaston), Charles Wheatstone, Morse, Mary Somerville, Babbington, Constable and new heroes for me, Glaisher (dew AND balloons!), Reid and Urbain Le Verrier etc etc, Moore holds your hand through their interweaving stories so you never feel lost. Their stories are interspersed with historical events, such as the Royal Charter Gale and the invention of the telegraph, and also with snippets from Emily Dickinson, Bacon, DIckens and Conrad, immersing you in the surge of creativity in 19th century Britain.

Moore neatly brings the Met Office work up to date with a concluding section on the role of scientists and prediction relating to climate change, but not before taking you on a brisk tour through its earliest observations.

In a way, it's a superb and moving testament to Fitzroy, this book - another one, really - but it's so much more, a thoroughly enjoyable romp through 80 years or so of trial and error, friendships and enmities, discoveries and people's struggles with their Christian belief. Glaston running calculations on whether prayer works is a hilarious highlight that comes towards the end, and yet it's one that follows a feast of great stories and moments that take you from the windmills of Suffolk to the Straits of Magellan via Barbados and more.

It's now a birthday present and a Christmas present to at least two other people,and for me it's also a happy souvenir of an Offa's Dyke walk in September because it's a book I picked up in Hay-on-Wye on one of those happy whims. ( )

read most of this, though I skimmed some; had trouble getting started; stopped at death of Fitzroy; book was much more about a few pioneers who collected data - lots of time, effort, and words on the personalities of these men rather than on the science of weather or even of data collection.
-- I'm really surprised at how highly rated this book is. ( )

When English people are not sure what to talk about, they discuss the weather. They probably did that 300 odd years ago too, but rather than seeing that the weather was part of a global system, it was assumed that all weather was Gods will, and a storm was evidence of his displeasure. In this book Moore brings to us the men who went against the convention and dogma of the day, with the hope of unlocking the secrets of the skies and understanding what made our weather.

The pioneers of science first sought to quantify and bring order to the atmosphere. There is Luke Howard the man who described and named the different cloud formations, Francis Beaufort who devised a scale so that wind strength could be quantified. James Glaisher started in astronomy but his fascination in the weather meant that he was the ideal man to take measurements in the first trips in hot air balloons to understand the upper atmosphere. Key to it all was Admiral Robert FitzRoy, sailor, explorer, scientist and the founder of what we now know as he Met Office. There were others too; James Epsy who thought he could control the weather, and the American scientists who explained the reason why a hurricane twists. There were others who contributed, in other technologies, such as Samuel Morse who gave us the telegraph, and allowed rapid transmission of the data collected by individuals across the country to the office in Whitehall.

These men were driven by saving lives for the navy and coastal communities. They taught people how to understand the instruments that they were using to take measurements. He describes the fight that they had against the vested interests of the day, as well as they complete disbelief that these men could predict the weather and in particular storms. The first few times that FitzRoy got a storm prediction wrong he was lambasted in the papers, but the men who used these warnings knew that these were vital to their trades.

Moore brings these men together in a narrative that is fascinating and compelling in equal measure. He brings alive the drive and obsession that these men had in understanding how the weather happened, and more importantly what happens on a summer day, compared to another day. The legacy that they have given us is a much better understanding of the atmosphere, weather trends and cycles. It has also given us the Met Office. One of our national sports is slating them when they get something wrong, especially on long term predictions or missing the odd hurricane, but for the day to day forecasts they are normally pretty good. Overall a pretty good book, but I would have preferred a more UK focus as he did head across the Atlantic and Channel fairly often, but still well worth reading. ( )

Really interesting content, but it felt like the author jumped around. I wanted more resolution to some of the topics - how exactly did we come to describe both circular and linear wind patterns, for example. It never gets into the history of the Coriolis Effect. Did all of the record-keeping of the Royal Navy come to any use?
If the intent of the book was just to detail the things leading up to weather forecasting, it should have streamlined its focus and not given us so much Fitzroy as a sailor or Constable the painter backstory. If the intent was to give all the history of meteorology, then Coriolis and the acceleration of the science during WWI and WWII would have been really interesting subject matter. ( )

Absolutely brilliant. Full of amazing stories of true events and extraordinary people. Beautifully written and perfectly rounded off in the present. A truly good book. ( )