Quietly collecting data shields a young science, but issuing public predictions exposes it to daily checking. Once the weather office moved from gathering statistics to forecasting, newspapers printed each forecast for everyone to judge. The pressure grew intense enough to drive the office's head to suicide.
A science that promises something everyone wants becomes the test case for whether government should pay for science at all. Weather forecasting drew wide public support because it seemed plainly useful. That made it the argument for treating science as a public responsibility.
The same usefulness that wins support turns against a science when its answers come out imprecise. The public, and scientists themselves, had to learn what level of accuracy was acceptable from a science that could not be exact. Until they did, every miss weakened the case for paying for it.
When scientists make predictions the public acts on, a new question arises: how answerable are they when they are wrong? Forecasting sparked broader debates about the duties of scientists and how much authority science deserves. Formal forecasters also had to compete for credibility with almanac weather prophets.
A science that draws on many fields and serves many interests has no tidy heroic history. It moves forward through clashes and failures to meet expectations. Victorian weather science fell short of the hopes placed in it and did not truly succeed for another 60 to 100 years.