Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society

• 1. Introduction

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  The Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society has been tracking the science of weather and atmosphere since 1871, making it one of the oldest continuously published scientific journals in its field. It did not begin life under that name. Its first incarnation was called the Bibliography of Meteorological Literature, a modest title that hints at a very different ambition. Within just two years, by 1873, the journal had transformed its identity and taken on the name it carries today. What drove that shift? What does a journal devoted to peer-reviewed meteorology actually look like, and how do scientists measure its influence? Those questions run through the story of this publication, from its nineteenth-century origins to its ranked position among nearly a hundred competing journals in the modern era.

• 2. From Bibliography to Journal

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  In 1871, the Royal Meteorological Society launched what it called the Bibliography of Meteorological Literature. The name signals something specific: this was not initially conceived as a home for original research. It was a cataloguing effort, a place to track and organise what others had written about the atmosphere. By 1873, that approach had given way to a broader vision. The journal acquired its current name, the Quarterly Journal of the Royal Meteorological Society, signalling a shift toward publishing the science itself rather than merely indexing it. That renaming planted the journal on a new trajectory that would carry it forward for over a century and a half.

• 3. How It Reaches Readers

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  Wiley-Blackwell handles the publication of the journal on behalf of the Royal Meteorological Society. The arrangement means that the scientific society retains its identity and editorial mission while a commercial publisher manages production and distribution. The journal appears eight times per year, a frequency that places it somewhere between a traditional quarterly and a monthly publication. For researchers submitting work or libraries subscribing, that pace reflects a field where new findings accumulate steadily throughout the year.

• 4. Standing in the Field

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  According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal's 2021 impact factor stood at 7.237. That figure places it 11th out of 94 journals in the category of Meteorology and Atmospheric Sciences. An impact factor measures, in rough terms, how frequently other researchers cite articles published in a given journal over a two-year window. Ranking 11th in a field of 94 puts the journal well inside the top quarter of its peer group. The journal is also abstracted and indexed in Current Contents and the Science Citation Index, which means its articles are catalogued in the databases researchers rely on when conducting literature searches across the physical, chemical, and earth sciences.