It goes without saying that weather forecasting is far more important than simply letting people know whether to take waterproofs and an umbrella out with them.
And finally the weather. After a cold start, most of the country should be warm and sunny. But towards late afternoon, rain will spread from Scotland to cover most parts by midnight.
It isn't known when people first started to observe the skies, but at around 650 BC, the Babylonians produced the first short-range weather forecasts, based on their observations of clouds and other phenomena.
More than 70,000 people in Ohio had no electricity as of yesterday morning and more heavy storms with the possibility of tornadoes and large hail were in the forecast.
It's in the northern United States that a storm system is bringing huge amounts of snow and forecasters say if their predictions pan out this could break records and it already has in some parts of Montana.r