Question: Todd published Adelaide's first public weather forecast on 20 September 1888 - when do you think the first next-day temperature forecast was published?
Find out at the end of the article!
When too many apps is barely enough, the Todd Research Group will launch “Todd’s Adelaide” at the RiAus on Thursday 8 May during this year’s About Time History Festival. The mobile app guides users around the streets of Adelaide to significant locations which tell the story of some of Sir Charles Todd’s contributions to a wide variety of fields in science and technology. The app has been developed by Roger Edmonds, another Todd enthusiast who has a background in online education.
To register for the Launch, go to www.abouttime.sa.gov.au and search for “Todd’s Adelaide”. If you have a smart phone, you will be invited to download the app and sample its contents on the day.
Among the locations is Engineers Australia’s Division office at 108 King William Street: the building is erected on the site of White’s Assembly Rooms where, on 2 October 1860, Todd gave the first public demonstration of electric light, using a battery-powered arc lamp he had made himself.
The Todd Research Group was established by the six professional groups who participated in the Charles Todd Symposium held in August 2012: the Astronomical Society of SA, the Australian Computer Society, the Australian Meteorological Association, the Philatelic Society of SA, the Surveying & Spatial Science Institute (SA), and Engineers Australia.
The Group has amassed a copious amount of material on Todd’s work which will be made available to other researchers through a website portal. Already online are 26 000 images of Todd’s weather folios from 1879 to 1909 prepared by volunteers from the Australian Meteorological Association at the Bureau of Meteorology in Kent Town – www.charlestodd.net/Todd_Folios/.
Answer: Charles Todd might well have published Adelaide's first weather forecast in 1888 but the public had to wait nearly 70 years - 11 May 1957 - before the following day's temperature was forecast. The seven day temperature forecasts we now take so much for granted didn't appear until 2011!
Engineering Heritage South Australia