Monday November 28, 2022 was the 250th anniversary of the birth of English chemist and amateur meteorologist Luke Howard, the man who named clouds. On a cold December evening in 1802, this modest young Quaker presented a lecture called ‘On the Modification of Clouds’ to members of his scientific debating club in London. Howard had loved the sky ever since he was a young child, and he proposed in his talk a system for naming the recognisable forms of clouds with Latin terms like those used for plants and animals. For millennia, a consistent and systematic way of referring to cloud types had eluded great minds. Many insisted clouds were too chaotic and ephemeral to be classified, or that naming them served no purpose. But the simple, science-based system of classification Howard proposed struck a chord not only with his audience that night but soon with an international scientific community and even with poets and artists. Luke Howard, much to his discomfort, became a celebrity across Great Britain and Europe. He was applauded for opening people’s eyes to the recognisable forms of the sky and for successfully arguing that Latin terms would provide a lexicon to ensure consistency across international weather observations. Howard’s naming system, now codified and maintained by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization, still remains the official system used worldwide. This week we are theming our Cloud-a-Day emails on ‘Father of Meteorology’ Luke Howard to mark the influence he had on the sciences, the arts, and on everyday people looking up when he forged a new language for the sky.
This portrait of Luke Howard, likely painted by John Opie in c. 1807, is in the collection of The Royal Meteorological Society in Reading, England.
Photo © Derek Bayes. All rights reserved 2022/Bridgeman Images.
Luke Howard Week: Tuesday
In Luke Howard’s 1802 lecture ‘On the Modifications of Clouds’ he proposed three main cloud families, or ‘simple modifications’ as he called them, which he named Stratus, Cumulus, and…
Luke Howard Week: Wednesday
‘But Howard gives us with his clear mind
The gain of lessons new to all mankind;
That which no hand can reach, no hand can clasp…
Luke Howard Week: Thursday
Luke Howard was a tireless and disciplined weather observer who for decades kept daily records of his measurements in and around London. This diagram of the mean temperature throughout the…
Luke Howard Week: Friday
The World Meteorological Organization – the official keeper of cloud classifications – has rigorously maintained the Latin naming system that Luke Howard first proposed in 1802. But nothing in the world of cloud is ever fixed, and so…
Luke Howard Week: Saturday
The sky in this watercolour from the first half of the nineteenth century was painted by Luke Howard. He became adept at depicting cloudscapes to use for illustrating his talks and publications about…
Luke Howard Week: Sunday
Attached high on the wall of a semi-derelict house at 7 Bruce Grove, Tottenham, London is an English Heritage blue plaque that reads, ‘The Namer of Clouds lived and died here.’ This was the home where Luke Howard spent…
