Ancient people did their best to understand and predict the weather. Lacking modern scientific instruments, early civilizations observed nature and kept records of the seasons. They understood how important the Sun was for growing their crops, which explains why many ancient cultures worshiped sun gods. In Mesopotamia the Babylonians counted on the weather gods Hadad and Marduk to bring them good harvests. The Hittites left the weather-producing chores to their primary deity, Teshub; while in Greece, a violent thunderstorm meant that the weather god Zeus was throwing a thunderbolt tantrum.
As far back as 1800 B.C., Hindus in India counted on their weather god, Indra, who carried a lightning bolt, to command the weather from his perch atop a large white elephant. In Scandinavia, Norse god Thor protected farmers and serfs from weather disasters.
Around 580 B.C., the philosopher Thales of Miletus is said to have issued the very first seasonal crop forecast based on past olive harvests. According to legend, Thales was so confident of his forecast that he reserved the use of all the olive presses in his area before the harvest and made a tidy profit leasing them back to farmers when the bumper crop arrived.
The first real effort to gather all known weather information into one place was accomplished by the philosopher Aristotle around 350 B.C. In his essay “Meteorologica” the philosopher correctly guessed that the Sun put large masses of air into motion, and that water vapor could condense into clouds. But Aristotle was hamstrung by his era’s notion that everything was made of four elements: fire, water, air, and earth. His attempts to force those elements to agree with the realities of nature limited his investigations. The other fallacy of his time was the belief that the earth was the center of the universe, which made it impossible to correctly explain the origin of the seasons.
Aristotle’s largest contribution to weather science was the term “meteorology,” which we still use today. The word comes from the Greek meteoros, which means “high in the sky.” In Aristotle’s day anything falling from or appearing in the sky (like rain or clouds) was called a meteor.
Some people still depend on folklore for weather safety, but many of the beliefs that have been passed down through the generations are misconceptions. For instance, some still insist the major danger from a hurricane is the wind, when most victims actually die in storm-spawned flooding.
Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus picked up his teacher’s work, writing a journal called On Weather Signs that noted how nature can often be used to forecast the weather. He also established a link between the weather and certain kinds of illnesses, and was the first person in recorded history to identify sunspots.
For the next 2,000 years, the science of meteorology went dormant. Without accurate instruments to predict developing weather conditions or even measure the basic elements, weather forecasters leaned on folklore or nature for advice on planting crops and avoiding weather disasters.