The story of numerical weather prediction (NWP) is a great story. It deals with the first successful attempts to see into the chaotic future, to predict non-period events. It is to a large extent a story of computers, mathematics and numerical schemes. But the development cannot be fully understood unless non-mathematical and non-technological facts are also included. Meteorological understanding, political considerations and human emotions are difficult to quantify, but they make the picture complete and the narrative more interesting for readers outside the ‘NWP community’.