Early in the 17th century the invention of many of the now-familiar meteorological instruments made scientific weather observations possible for the first time.
It was another 150 years, however, before any serious attempt was made to obtain simultaneous readings from different places. Even then, nothing much was done with them except to note them with some interest. Until Heinrich Brandes came along.
The most successful observing network of the era was one of 37 stations throughout Europe, organised during the 1780s by what was called the Meteorological Society of Mannheim. Although the project was in operation for only 12 years, it was a very valuable step forward. For the first time observations were carried out with standardised methods and with carefully calibrated instruments.
The data were recorded in a tabular form, and were seen as useful only for evaluating climate. With no hypotheses to test, it was a long time before it occurred to anyone that a cartographic depiction of wind and barometric pressure might yield some interesting results.
Those who investigated the weather at the time concentrated on the study of the climate, and did not predict or analyse the elements.
Brandes, by contrast, was the first to view weather as a spatial concept. He was born in Germany in 1777, and in 1811 was appointed professor of mathematics at the University of Breslau. It provided him the opportunity to indulge his lifelong interest in meteorology. He saw that graphic symbols on a chart might be more informative than merely listing data in a table.
"If we were to prepare weather charts of Europe for each of the 365 days of the year", Brandes wrote in his book Beitrage zur Witterung skunde, or Contributions to Meteorology, "then it would be possible to determine the limit of the large rain-cloud which lies over France and Germany in July".
Following his own advice, during the period from 1816 to 1821 Brandes entered the Manheim collection of observations for each day of the year 1783 on 365 individual maps. He then drew lines to indicate deviations of the atmospheric pressure from its normal value.
Although many years out of date, his charts identified for the first time the depressions and anticyclones which are so familiar to us today, and thus laid the foundations of modern meteorology. It introduced a methodology which has survived even to the present day.
Heinrich Wilhelm Brandes, producer of the world's first weather maps, lived until 1834 and died 167 years ago today, on May 17th of that year.