Almanacs that predicted the weather for each day of the year were popular for centuries. The forecasts were usually vague and rather elastic. Fair and unsettled were popular forecasts and in winter, frosty. Nobody minded that they were wrong at least half the time.
An exception occurred when Murphy’s Almanac forecast for 20 January 1838 was “Fair. Prob. lowest deg of winter temp.” That day the temperature plunged to -26C at Walton-on-Thames, one of the coldest days for generations.
The coincidence of the cold weather and a correct forecast caused a sensation. The almanac sold out and had to be constantly reprinted, making Murphy £3,000.
Patrick Murphy was subsequently widely attacked in newspapers for his “quackery”, and an unkind analysis of the whole year of his predictions compared with the actual weather in London found that 197 were completely wrong and most of the rest were questionable.
The “gullible” public ignored these critics and his fame became so great that the winter of 1837-38 was long known as Murphy’s winter. His almanac sold well every year until his death in 1847.
Although many observers were beginning to take meteorology seriously in an attempt to properly predict the weather, Murphy, like many of his contemporaries, used the movements of the moon and stars to create their daily forecasts.
A clue to how seriously Murphy took himself is his title “P Murphy, Esq MNS” on the cover of his almanac. The letters MNS stood for “Member of No Society”.
