Royal Meteorological Society Weather and Climate

Did you know the following 21 things about the Society?

The Meteorological Society received its Royal Charter in 1866 but did not use the title “Royal” until the autumn of 1883 when Queen Victoria granted permission for it to be used.
The first Lady Fellow was Dr Eleanor Anne Ormerod who was elected on 20 February 1878.
The Royal Meteorological Society was 158 years old in 2008 and has over 3000 members.
The Society is the Regulating Body and Competent Authority for Meteorology in the UK, and the NVQs and Chartered Meteorologist are recognised across Europe as professional qualifications.
The Society website registered over 4 million page impressions and 1.4 million unique visits in 2006
The Society is a registered charity and a not-for-profit organisation. We rely heavily on membership fees, publications income, charitable donations and legacies to fund our range of programmes – thank you to all those who contribute.

There are almost 1000 weather images available for viewing and download on the RMetS website.
Metlink, an internet-based project in which participants make and exchange weather observations has many registered members from all over the world. The project is for primary and secondary schools and for individuals of any age with a general interest in recording weather observations.
The Society was the organization who collected weather and climate observations for the UK, until this responsibility was passed to the Met Office in 1912.

A total of £37,589 in awards, grants, scholarships and bursaries was awarded by the Society in 2006.
A total of 1327 people attended Society meetings in 2006.
The Society has an online shop which stocks books, calendars, umbrellas, cloud guides, mugs, tie pins and a range of other merchandise at large discount to members.
Society members are entitled to substantial discounts on our Journals – these remain four of the world’s leading meteorological journals.
The Society’s partnership with the Weather Shop means that members can obtain big discounts on weather observing equipment if bought through the Society website.

Society journals are distributed to over 120 countries in the world and are available to over 1200 institutes in 70 developing countries (from Angola to Zambia) through the UN supported aid initiatives OARE and AGORA.
The most cited paper from Meteorological Applications in 2006 was “Point and areal validation of forecast precipitation fields” by Yates et al.
The most accessed paper in Quarterly Journal in 2007 was “Flash flood forecasting: What are the limits of predictability?” by C. G. Collier with 300 downloads to date.
Back copies of all the Society’s journals, including Quarterly Journal back to 1871, are available online free to members.
The most accessed paper from the International Journal of Climatology in 2006 was “Two decades of urban climate research: a review of turbulence, exchanges of energy and the urban heat island” by A. J. Arnfield.
Every hour of every day 13 abstracts and 8 articles from the International Journal of Climatology are downloaded by scientists worldwide.