Medieval weather prediction

Abstract

Meteorological practices that developed in the first millennium did not die in the Middle Ages but were radically improved with an international science of weather forecasting.

Indigenous astronomical knowledge based seasonal weather forecast: evidence from Borana Oromo pastoralists of Southern Ethiopia

“…Especially, future phenomena of the severity and physical distribution of drought; and location specific amount of rainfall in the Borana zone and its surrounding area is easily predicted by using seasonal weather indicating features of the moon. This is agreed with the finding of the Lawrence (2021b) , which noted that many village level Astrologers (Pandits) are still predicting highly accurate weather with planet movements in advance of the occurrences of the events which allow people to prepare in disaster risk management.…”

“…This is in consistent with the Study in Botswana quoted in Lorreta (2014) , posited that it was customary for the ancient people to align their sacred monuments with precise solar, lunar and stellar positions; ( Lee et al 2020 ) noted that Weather forecasting has been a tool of decision making since millennia. In connection with this Lawrence (2021a) , also found that until about 350 years ago scientists and natural philosophers thought that the Sun, Moon and planets play an important role in modulating the weather on Earth.…”

“…It also stated that the daily rainfall forecast through Astro-meteorology showed the highest forecast accuracy of 74–87 percent. Apparently study undertaken by Lawrence (2021b) explore that the repeated cycles of the sun, moon, and stars helped to regulate human activity as people strove to make sense of their world and to keep their actions in harmony with the cosmos as they perceived it. Study of ( Scofield, 2010 ) found that early Greece use context of astrological features to best illustrate works and days, the cycle of the year, and the month in the process of agricultural activities.…”

“…Indigenous astronomy is about people’s relationships with the sky, not just about the sky ( Willis & Ii, 2011 ; Lawrence, 2021a ). Important aspect of indigenous astronomy is how knowledge about the sky is culturally encoded weather in every daily livelihood decision making ( Scofield, 2010 ; Ruggles, 2015 ; Lee et al , 2020 ).…”

ECS-Ecrea Early Career Scholar Prize winner - An astrological genealogy of artificial intelligence: From ‘pseudo-sciences’ of divination to sciences of prediction

“…However, in medieval academic spheres, astrologers and astronomers were close collaborators. Notably, in medieval Islamic academia, the two worked together to introduce a form of theological weather divination known as astrometeorology (Lawrence-Mathers, 2021). In an attempt to upgrade more classical approaches to meteorology which were largely based on hypotheses about the effects of meteors on the weather or on unanswered questions about seasonal patterns, astrometeorologists proposed that the movements of planets and the configurations of stars were responsible for earthly weather conditions (Lawrence-Mathers, 2021).…”