Richly researched, exciting... It is both scientific and cultural history, of prizewinning potential and as fresh and exhilarating throughout as a strong sea breeze.

Superbly researched and grippingly written... Moore is at least as interested in the personalities and their rivalries, and the sheer spendour and catastrophies of weather itself - storms and shipwrecks, heatwaves and floods (all vividly described) - as by the science. And he weaves it together, deftly picking up threads left dangling in earlier chapters, darting across continents, embracing swashbuckling sea captains and fastidious bureaucrats, penny-pinching politians and mad inventors, with as sharp an eye for eccentricity, absurdity and tragedy as for genius. The result is a panorama of the entire Victorian era.

The Weather Experiment is a genuinely gripping read and demonstrates how scientific ideas can come ahead of the time

Moore is the rare science writer who can describe dew point so poetically you feel you’re with him in a twinkling field of white clover on a cool summer morning… Evocative and full of wisdom for modern times.

The Weather Experiment is not the first book to have been written about FitzRoy…but Moore’s achievement is to imbue him and his work with palpable narrative life, while surrounding him with a large supporting cast of contemporaries

A skilful, detailed account of a complex story, in which scientific advances are far from inevitable in a world of flawed humans and bad luck... Moore's engaging, often surprising work of storytelling, written with such care and pleasure, is a fine tribute

Impressive

Thought-provoking… Rich and informative … Arnold Toynbee once railed against the view that ‘History is just one damned thing after another’. Recording weather data day in, day out must feel like one damn temperature reading after another. Yet Moore has skilfully converted decades of routine monotony into a gripping tale of derring-do.

Elegantly constructed … The Weather Experiment surprises constantly, often by weaving together the famous and the obscure

Prepare for turbulence in this history of Britain’s seminal contribution to weather forecasting

This biography is an impressive achievement

Moore’s enthusiasm for his subject and the astonishing audacity of those long ago storm chasers make the book a deeply enjoyable read.

Moore writes about this band of ad hoc scientists with brio, and it’s hard not to be awed and charmed by their united quest to prove that earth’s atmosphere was not chaotic beyond comprehension, that it could be studied, understood and, ultimately, predicted … Detailed and insightful, this book is as relevant as ever in this era of rapid climate change.

Rich and enlightening, I’ll never look at a dewy morning in the same way again.

For illuminating a byway of scientific history that many scarcely knew existed we must thank Peter Moore, whose superbly researched an grippingly written book is more than a dusty account of early meteorologists

Moore does an excellent job of telling the story of meteorological advances

enlightening… to read it is a joy

A compelling journey through the early history of weather forecasting, bringing to life the personalities, lives and achievements of the men who put in place the building blocks required for forecasts to be possible.

Enthralling history of weather forecasting… Moore’s book records the adventure, drama and occasional tragedy involved in bringing us the calm reassurance of the nightly weather forecast.

Superbly researched and gripping book… He darts across continents, embracing swashbuckling sea captains and fastidious bureaucrats, penny-pinching politicians and mad inventors, with as sharp an eye for absurdity and tragedy as for genius.