I first came across the term ‘prebaratic’ or ‘prebar’ when I joined the Met OfficeUKMO The Meteorological Office is the United Kingdom's national weather service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in 1970 as an assistant. To me the term was synonymous with the ‘T+24 forecast chart’ which we received at outstations by MOLFAXMOLFAX An early type of fax machine using wet paper.* from Bracknell every six hours. I never realised until now that ‘prebaratic’ was a rather crude acronym for “barometric pressure distribution over the Atlantic” until I read this in the 1956 book ‘Weather Map’. It’s hard to believe that these prebaratic charts were the very forecast charts which we take for granted these days.
* This is a MOLFAX recorder which was an essential piece of equipment at outstations. This is an image of a MUFAX machine made by MUirehead. I’m sure we didn’t call it MUFAX back then, but MOLFAX, don’t ask me what that acronym stood for, but you can be sure Met Office was in there somewhere. The Met Office have always been good at inventing acronyms. 😉
