"Everybody talks about the weather," an aphorism attributed to Mark Twain goes, "but nobody does anything about it." It's not from lack of trying: Our ancestors have been attempting to do something about the weather -- or at least predict it -- since 650 BC, when Babylonians based their prognostications on cloud patterns.

Without accurate instruments or a way to rapidly communicate measurements, however, early weather forecasting remained mostly a matter of aphorisms. Variations of "Red sky at night, sailor's delight; red sky at morning, sailor take warning" pop up in the Bible (Matthew 16:2-3) and in Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis.