Robert Hooke was a contemporary of Robert Boyle, Christopher Wren and Isaac Newton. He is best known for the law of elasticity - Hooke's Law - but he was also interested in meteorology.
Tradition has it that it was Hooke who first tried to quantify the relationship between the reading on a barometer and the weather prevailing at the time. It was known that when the weather was good the mercury climbed higher in the "glass", and that conversely, when the weather was wet and stormy, the mercury was often low. Hooke however, attempted to be more precise.
In 1670, he equipped his mercury barometer with a float, connected by a chain to operate a pointer on a clock-like dial. The corresponding height of the mercury column was engraved on the dial, and the word "change" inscribed at 29.5ins; "rain", "much rain", and "stormy" were inserted at halfinch intervals on the low side, and "fair", "set fair" and "very dry" on the high side. The idea - and indeed the terms themselves - became very popular throughout the whole of Europe, where in due course people spoke of the barometer monte a la maniere d'Angleterre - "set up in the English manner". The descriptions are still with us in only slight variations of their original form.
Hooke also held views on the correct way to observe the weather, and in October 1663 presented a paper on the subject to the Royal Society of London. The good weather observer, he says, in addition to temperature, atmospheric pressure, and all the usual things, should note "what effects are produced upon other bodies: as what aches and distempers are in the bodies of men; what diseases are most rife, as colds, fevers, agues etc. What putrefactions or other changes are produced, as the sweating of marble, the blasting of trees and corn, the plenty or scarcity of insects, and anything notable of that kind".
Also entered in Hooke's ideal weather log were: "What thunders and lightnings happen, and what effects they may produce, as souring of beer or ale, turning milk, killing silkworms, etc. And also greater or lesser tides than ordinary, comets or unusual apparitions, new stars, ignes fatui, shining exhalations, or the like".
All this is rather more than we expect from our present-day weather observers. But Hooke ends with a final piece of advice on observations with which no meteorologist would quarrel: "They should all, or most of them, be diligently observed and registered by someone that is always conversant in or near the same place".