History of Old Weather in Timeline

Old Weather is a citizen science project focused on digitizing historical weather observations from mid-19th century ship logbooks. Volunteers contribute to atmospheric research by transcribing these records. The project supports the Atmospheric Circulation Reconstructions over the Earth initiative and has provided data for various climate reanalysis projects like HURDAT, SODA, and ECMWF. Old Weather received the Royal Meteorological Society IBM Award for Meteorological Innovation that Matters in 2013.

1912: Whaling Ship Logbook Project

The Old Weather project focuses on logbooks of whaling ships that sailed Arctic seas from 1849 to 1912. Volunteer transcribers create spreadsheets of information on sea ice and weather provided in the logbooks for scientists to use in climate studies.

October 2010: Phase I Launch

In October 2010, Old Weather launched Phase I, initiating the digitization of Royal Navy logs.

2010: Volunteer transcription of Royal Navy ships

From 2010 to 2012, online volunteers at Old Weather transcribed historical weather data and naval events from the logbooks of the 314 Royal Navy ships of the World War 1 era.

July 23, 2012: Volunteer Transcription Milestone

On July 23, 2012, Old Weather announced that 16,400 volunteers had transcribed weather data from 1,090,745 pages of log books from 302 ships.

October 2012: Phase III Launch

In October 2012, Phase III of the Old Weather project was launched, focusing on logs from US ships in the Arctic and worldwide dating back to the mid-1800s.

2012: Volunteer transcription of Royal Navy ships

From 2010 to 2012, online volunteers at Old Weather transcribed historical weather data and naval events from the logbooks of the 314 Royal Navy ships of the World War 1 era.

February 2013: Royal Meteorological Society IBM Award

In February 2013, the Old Weather project received the Royal Meteorological Society IBM Award for Meteorological Innovation that Matters, recognizing its contributions to the field.

August 2018: Phase III Completion

On 06 August 2018, Old Weather announced the completion of Phase III.

2019: WWII Ship Log Project Completion

In 2019, the Old Weather project to collect data from the ship logs of 19 US Navy ships in World War II was completed.

2023: Old Weather U. S. Federal Ships project ongoing

As of the end of 2023, 248 ship/years had been processed, with over 7.6 million weather observations digitized. Data from the project was analyzed by NOAA to reconstruct what had long been described as a hurricane that hit Sitka in Alaska in 1880. The reanalysis showed that it wasn’t a hurricane, but part of a much larger storm system known as an extra-tropical cyclone.