Abstract: Weather forecasting has developed from empirical practice to physico-mathematical theory and super-computing system engineering. The history of its development in the last decades is reviewed from a physical point of view, with a brief discussion of various problems in its further development, as well as its extension to the design of an“Earth system model”for the prediction and regulation of“climate and ecosystem-environment systems”and the engineering of artificial weather modification. Multi-disciplinary collaboration between the earth sciences, physical sciences, mathematical sciences, and other disciplines are needed.