In the late 1880s, the interest to meteorology suddenly increased, especially concerning its application to the agriculture. This interest was especially manifested during the 8th congress of Russian scientists in Saint-Petersburg. At the meeting in the Imperial Russian Geographic Society on January 7, 1890, many participants of the congress declared for the foundation of the meteorological journal. The signed up founders raised 2000 roubles for the initial outlay and elected the editorial committee for the foundation of the popular-science meteorological journal. The editorial committee came to the conclusion that the best way was to join the Imperial Russian Geographic Society because it had already done a lot for the development of meteorology in Russia. Meteorological Bulletin journal started being published in January 1891. It consisted of the following sections: special and popular papers in meteorology, hydrology, and geomagnetism; news; literature survey; weather review; correspondence; appendixes. The weather review being the first ones in Russia were of special interest because the monthly weather bulletins of Main Geophysical Observatory started being published only since 1893 and were composed in another way. In the “Appendices” section, the materials received from the networks of meteorological commission were published.
Meteorological Bulletin journal was published from 1891 to 1935 by the Meteorological Commission of the Russian Geographic Society and (from 1926) of the Geographic Society of the USSR. The journal was edited for many years by A. I. Voeikov.
Since September 1935, Russian Meteorology and Hydrology journal has been published instead of Meteorological Bulletin. It was founded by the decision of the United Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR and State Geographic Society by merging two journals, Meteorological Bulletin and Bulletin of EGMS which had similar objectives and the same readership. The publishers of the journal were the Central Administration of the United Hydrometeorological Service of the USSR and State Geographic Society (till 1938).
In June 1941, the last issue of the journal in the pre-war period was published. The journal was not published during the Great Patriotic War. The publication of Russian Meteorology and Hydrology was resumed in 1946. In 1946–1949, six issues of the journal were published every year with the subtitle “Information Collection”.
Russian Meteorology and Hydrology was finally reborn as monthly journal in 1950 only. Its publication was moved from Leningrad to Moscow and new editorial board was formed. The volume of the journal at that time was small but in 1967 it doubled and reached 8 printer’s sheets. The journal has existed in such form till now. In the 1970s–1980s, the circulation of the journal reached 8 000.
The following well-known scientist-hydrometeorologists being the pride of the national science always were the members of the editorial board of the journal: G. A. Ushakov, E. K. Fedorov, Yu. M. Shokal’skii, S. P. Khromov, S. I. Savinov, E. I. Tikhomirov, N. A. Bagrov, I. G. Pchelko, G. P. Kalinin, A. I. Chebotarev, M. A. Petrosyants, and many others. Editors in chief: I. G. Fainshtein (1935–1937), G. A. Ushakov (1937–1939), E. K. Fedorov (1939–1940), N. N. Gribanov (1939–1940), V. V. Shuleikin (1949–1950), K. I. Kashin (1950–1954), K. T. Logvinov (1954–1955), F. F. Davitaya (1955–1962), V. A. Bugaev (1962–1974), E. I. Tolstikov (1974–1987), Yu. S. Sedunov (1987–1994), and Yu. A. Izrael (1994–2014).
At present, the founder of the journal is the Federal Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring and the publisher is the State Research Center “Planeta”. The editor-in-chief of the journal is V. V. Asmus.
The journal kept its volume and periodicity. The circulation of the journal is one of the largest among those of many scientific periodicals. Russian Meteorology and Hydrology is the only and unique scientific and technical journal in Russia and CIS. It is called-for by the reader. Since 1976, Russian Meteorology and Hydrology journal has been reprinted in English in the USA. It is currently available in electronic form in Russian and English.
The most part of the papers in the journal deal with the urgent issues of meteorology, hydrometeorology of sea and land, agrometeorology, aviation meteorology, and space meteorology; with the problems of studying the World Ocean, Arctic, and Antarctic, radiation conditions in the near space, radioactive and chemical contamination of natural environments, geomagnetic activity, ionospheric conditions, radio wave propagation conditions, global and regional changes in the ozonosphere and climate, and respective global changes in the biosphere, hydrometeorological services for different sectors of the industry, agriculture, and transport of the country, forecasting of the weather, water content, crop yield, and climate, and weather modification activities.
In the “Reviews and Consultations” section of the journal, the information is published about the environmental pollution, radiation conditions, weather, and severe hydrometeorological phenomena in the concrete month on the territory of Russia and CIS and, since 1998, about the ozone content over the territory of the Russian Federation and adjoining territories. In the “Chronicles” section, the information is given about the conferences and meetings on hydrometeorology and environmental conditions and about other events in the scientific life and activity of hydrometeorological community. Writings about the life and creative work of distinguished researchers and science organizers are also published in this section.
All these years, the papers by leading Russian and foreign scientists have been published in the journal; they concern the urgent problems of hydrometeorological science and practice. The subject matter of the journal has broadened constantly; it indicates the whole scope of hydrometeorological activity service and directs the efforts of scientists on solving the problems needed for developing the country economy. For example, in recent years, the journal pays great attention to such problems as the pollution of the environment in its different spheres, climate change, hydrometeorological disasters, and efficiency of the provision of the government, economic sectors, and community with reliable hydrometeorological information. The studies on the forecasting of hydrometeorological parameters and phenomena with different lead times are still urgent as well.