In late 2023 I noticed an online Daily Mirror article, claiming that 1 Jan 2024 would be the 100th birthday of the Shipping Forecast broadcast on BBC Radio. I was momentarily confused as I remembered the BBC celebrating the same 100th birthday more than a year ago. I clicked the link and read the news article. On New Year’s Day the story was amplified by the Times and a number of smaller local papers. Below is my own short article on the origins of the Shipping Forecast and the Met Office. My research lead me to a slightly different 100 birthday date but it is of little consequence in the bigger picture. The story however is quite fascinating.
The Meteorological Office (1854)
On 1 August 1854 Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy established the Meteorological Office (later shortened to Met. Office) as a small department within the Board of Trade. The new department consisted of Fitzroy and three other staff. They began collecting meteorological observations from around the UK and from ships at sea. The department sourced and tested equipment which they would lend to ships for this data to be collected.
Fitzroy was a well-respected Navy Officer having previously commanded the Beagle’s 5 year circumnavigation with Charles Darwin onboard. Interestingly it was Admiral Francis Beaufort (of Beaufort Scale fame) who had first introduced Darwin and Fitzroy and who put Fitzroy forward as Director of the new department.
The Royal Charter Storm (1859)
Fast forward to October 1859 and a violent gale led to the total loss of the steam clipper, the “Royal Charter”. Over 450 lives were lost although the exact number was never confirmed as the passenger manifest was lost with the wreck. This was the highest death toll of any shipwreck on the Welsh coast and the gale adopted the name “The Royal Charter Storm”.
133 ships and 800 lives were lost during the Royal Charter Storm and many other vessels were badly damaged. Winds reached Beaufort Force 12. The Beaufort Scale does not provide an upper limit to a Force 12, but winds during the storm were recorded at over 100mph. It was considered to be the worst storm in the Irish Sea in the entire 19th century.
The story dominated the media and conversation for the coming days and weeks and many people demanded a system be put in place to warn ships of such storms in the future. Such a service had never previously existed and many established scientists of the age doubted that weather at sea could be meaningfully predicted. Fitzroy however believed his department, the Met Office, could do so.
Gale Warnings (1860-61)
He met considerable objection from renowned scientists of the era. None the less his previous time as the Governor of New Zealand and as a former MP in the House of Commons had left him with contacts in government. He convinced them and the following year (1860) his department issued its first gale warnings. By 1861 he had designed a system of hoisting cones at principal ports around the UK to warn seafarers not to put to sea.
On the first occasion the Met Office sent a gale warming telegram to NW England and Fitzroy’s cones were hoisted, the fleet on the Tyne disregarded his warning and there was considerable loss of life. As a result future warnings were listened to and before long Fitzroy was given authority to order a fleet to stay in port for their own safety. This of course made him unpopular with some as they lost the valuable income from their ships. Conversely he was considered a hero by many fishing families as their fathers, sons and husbands no longer put to see when a gale was imminent.
The Shipping Forecast
The above events were the birth of the Storm Warning Service (which was later renamed the Shipping Forecast). This also secured the future of the Met Office as a service to ensure the safety of mariners. The Shipping Forecast (now 156 years old) is the longest running national forecast service in the world.
Forecasting
In 1861 Fitzroy’s funding from government was intended to provide gale warnings; however he went further and his first public weather forecast (i.e. not for shipping) was published in the Times newspaper on 1 August 1861.
During the early 1860s Fitzroy developed a new barometer, he authored “The Weather Book: A manual of practical meteorology,” and established metrological forecasting techniques. He invented the word “forecast” and was even employed by Queen Victoria who requested a weather forecast for crossings of the Solent when she attended Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.
Fitzroy’s Met Office barometers were placed at strategic fishing ports around the country and in many ports the stone column that housed them still remains. Many of these barometers were paid for with Fitzroy’s own money and they have been credited with having saved the lives of thousands of fishermen. The barometer at Mousehole (Cornwall) still serves in situ today.
Vice Admiral Roberty Fiztroy
Although Fitzroy worked hard, he was very much a man before his time and constantly had to fight the criticism of the scientific establishment. With minimal funding available he used his family’s money to fund his public work and exhausted some £6K (about £400K today) of his own wealth. In 1865 depressed and penniless Fitzroy took his own life with a razor blade to his neck. The Met Office fell into disarray and although the forecasts continued, the order for fleets to stay in port due to gale warnings ceased to be communicated by cones on masts ashore, much to the satisfaction of certain fishing fleet owners. Over the coming years the fishermen’s families put pressure on the government and the system was returned in the 1870s.
Fitzroy was the pioneer of weather forecasting, and despite his death his work had inspired others. Over the coming years forecasting and the Met Office developed immensely.
Shipping Forecast by Radio (1911)
Up until 1911, the the Met Office issued the gale warnings (shipping forecast) by telegram to coastal towns. That year they began issuing the shipping forecast via radio, This service was temporarily suspended during WW1, for fear of it assisting the enemy.
During WW1, the Met Office was called upon to help the war effort and was adopted by the Air Ministry (RAF). The Met Office re located many of their weather observation stations to RAF airfields (where most still remain today). A few years later the department split, with some staff moving their attention to a new department at the Royal Navy.
The Met Office is no longer part of the MOD but still has strong ties.
Shipping Forecast by BBC Radio (1922)
In November 1922 (101 years ago) the BBC began to Broadcast the Shipping Forecast on BBC radio. A year later (September 1923) the Radio Times went to print for the first time and the Shipping Forecast times were listed.
The same year Met Office scientist Lewis Fry Richardson published a ground-breaking weather model which laid foundations for the Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP). It wasn’t until the 1960s that technology gave the Met Office the computer they needed to fully use the world’s first numerical model.
Inshore Waters Forecast by Radio (1965)
On 6 March 1965 an Additional marine Forecast for coastal waters was broadcast by the BBC at about 23.45. This was also provided by the Met Office and was the start of what we now call the Inshore Waters Forecast. Today mariners use both forecasts to paint a fuller picture, The Inshore Waters Forecast is for up to 12 miles offshore and the Shipping Forecast cover the sea areas beyond 12 miles offshore. The image below is the announcement in the Radio Times (1965) of the new coastal forecast.
BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast
On Friday 30 May 2014, BBC Radio 4 failed to broadcast the Shipping Forecast at 0520. While the weather reader was reading out the forecast, broadcasters flicked the wrong switch and listeners instead heard BBC World Service.
The shipping Forecast celebrated its 150th birthday on 24 August 2017.
From 30 March 2020 to 5 July 2020, emergency rescheduling due to Covid 19 reduced the previous four broadcasts a day to three, 00:48, 05:33, and either 12:03 (weekdays) or 17:54 (weekends).
| UK (local time) | Broadcast | Notes |
| 00:48 | FM &LW | Includes weather reports from an extended list of coast stations at 0052 plus Inshore waters Forecast at 0055 and concludes with a brief UK weather outlook, finishes approx. 0058 |
| 05:20 | FM &LW | Includes weather reports from coastal stations at 05:25 and the Inshore Waters Forecast at 05:27. |
| 12:01 | LW | |
| 17:54 | LW (weekdays)
LW & FM (weekends) |
The Shipping Forecast is a well known part of Great Britain’s heritage, it is immensely popular with the British public, many non-seafarers listen to it and literally set their clock by it. In 1995, a plan to move the late night broadcast by 12 minutes triggered thousands of angry complaints and a debate in the House of Commons. The change of schedule never occurred.
Peter Jefferson, who read the Forecast for 40 years until 2009, said he received letters from listeners across the UK saying that the 0048 broadcast helped them get to sleep after a long day.
BBC presenter Zeb Soanes, read the Shipping Forecast to over one billion listeners at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. It went down so well that the iconic shipping forecast was played again at the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, to represent Britain’s maritime heritage. In 2012 Soanes summarised;
”To the non-nautical, it is a nightly litany of the sea. It reinforces a sense of being islanders with a proud seafaring past. Whilst the listener is safely tucked-up in their bed, they can imagine small fishing-boats bobbing about at Plymouth or 170ft waves crashing against Rockall.
Countless bands, artists and comedians have quoted the Shipping Forecast in their work. The 1990s rave act, “The Prodigy,” sampled a short section on their track “Weather Experience” from the album “Experience”. The track was about the Hurricane Strength “Great Storm” of 1987, which Weatherman Michael Fish famously denied would occur. The storm in question was the worst to hit SE England in 3 centuries but got the Prodigy lads and myslef the next day off school.
On 10 January 1993, broadcasters read out the most severe shipping forecast ever, “Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey. South West Hurricane Force 12 or more.”
Shipping Forecast Sea Areas
There are currently 31 Sea Areas used in the Shipping Forecast. As an RYA Instructor I have often been asked by Day Skipper & Yachtmaster students where the names come from. The truth is Fitzroy’s work was very much aimed at the fisherman who went to sea every day so the names were mostly relevant to fisherman, here is the full list, listed clockwise around the UK and Ireland in the same order they are read on the Shipping Forecast.
| 1 | Viking | Viking Bank (or Viking Bergan Bank) is an area to the East of Shetland About 14,000 years ago when sea levels were 100m lower the Viking Bank would have been a small island surrounded by shallow water occupied by Viking ancestors. |
| 2 | North Utsire | Named after the Norwegian, Island of Utsire (approx. population 200). |
| 3 | South Utsire | |
| 4 | Forties | An area of the North Sea that is fairly consistently 40 fathoms (73m) deep. |
| 5 | Cromarty | Named after Cromarty Firth, Scotland. The Firth has been a natural safe anchorage for centuries. |
| 6 | Forth | Named after the Firth of Forth, the estuary between Edinburgh and Fife where your author first learnt to sail at the age of 6. |
| 7 | Tyne | Named after Tyne Estuary or River Tyne (Tyneside in NE England). |
| 8 | Dogger | Named after “Dogger Bank” a large shallow sandbank in the North Sea, popular spot with fishing fleets. During the last ice age Doggerland connected mainland Europe and Great Britain. It is the site of the Doggerbankwindfarm, soon to be the biggest windfarm in the world. |
| 9 | Fisher | Fisher Bank is a North Sea sand bank off the coast of Denmark. It consists of Great Fisher Bank, and Little Fisher Bank . Some older charts refer to “Great Fishing Bank” and “Little Fishing Bank”. As the names suggest the area was very good for fishing but has been overfished and fleets have moved elsewhere. |
| 10 | German Bight | A bight is a turn in a coastline. German Bight is in the North Sea, bordered to the South by Holland and Germany and to the East by Germany and Denmark. |
| 11 | Humber | The Humber Estuary (aka River Humber) is home of several former fishing towns (Grimsby, Hull, Immingham). During Anglo-Saxon times the Humber was the boundary between Northumbria and the Southern kingdoms of England. The name Northumbria derives from Norðhymbre, “the People North of the Humber”. |
| 12 | Thames | The Thames Estuary is the mouth of the River Thames (London) and is one of the busiest shipping areas in the world. |
| 13 | Dover | The Port of Diver is a busy port. The Dover Straits are the busiest shipping lane in the world and Dover is a tactical port to sailors. To the South and West is the tidal system of the English Channel, to the North East is the separate tidal system of the North Sea. |
| 14 | Wight | The Isle of Wight is a small island on the South coast of the UK, well known to sailors and home of the Cowes Week regatta. |
| 15 | Portland | Isle of Portland is connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land and is home of the largest man made harbour in the UK. Its southern tip, Portland Bill is a well know headland to English Channel sailors as it has complex tides, large overfalls and is considered a tidal gate. |
| 16 | Plymouth | Plymouth is a large natural naval and fishing port. |
| 17 | Biscay | The Bay of Biscay is respected and feared by sailors everywhere, it can be kind or cruel. |
| 18 | Trafalgar | Cape Trafalgar in Spain is officially where the Mediterranean Sea ends and the Atlantic Ocean starts. It is famous for the Battle of Trafalgar where Admiral Nelson decisively beat Napoleon’s combined Spanish and French naval fleets. |
| 19 | FitzRoy | Hopefully if you have read the above article you can work this one out, however this sea area was previously called Finisterre (see below). |
| 20 | Sole | Sole Bank a shallow bank SW of Cornwall is another fishing area made up of Great Sole Bank and Little Sole Bank |
| 21 | Lundy | Lundy Island is a small island in the Bristol Channel, current population 28. |
| 22 | Fastnet | Fastnet Rock is the most southerly point of Ireland, It is famous for the Fastnet Race, the world’s most popular offshore yacht race, made famous by the Fastnet Disaster of 1979, an event we still draw upon on Sea Survival Courses today. |
| 23 | Irish Sea | For readers who are not local, this is the stretch of water between the Island of Ireland and NW England / Wales. |
| 24 | Shannon | Shannon Estuary is a large Irish Estuary where the River Shannon meets the Atlantic Ocean. |
| 25 | Rockall | Rockall is a small granite islet (25m by 31m) that cannot support human life. It was claimed by the UK in 1955, principally to ensure another nation did not claim it as an outpost to spy on UK military tests. Fewer than 20 people have been recorded as ever having landed on it! |
| 26 | Malin | Malin Head is the most Northerly point of mainland Ireland |
| 27 | Hebrides | The Hebrides are an archipelago of Islands off the West coast of Scotland, grouped into the Inner Hebrides and the Outer Hebrides |
| 28 | Bailey | No doubt named after Bill Bailey’s bank, which in turn may have been named after a fishing skipper many years ago. |
| 29 | Fair Isle | Fair Isle is the Southernmost Shetland Island. |
| 30 | Faeroes | The Faroe Islands are an autonomous territory of Denmark |
| 31 | Southeast Iceland | The sea area to the SE of the Island of Iceland! |
Only 7 of the original sea areas still survive on the current list, (Forties, Humber, Dogger, Thames, Wight, Shannon and Hebrides), many were added later. All names were chosen by the Met Office and those 7 may well have been chosen by Fitzroy himself.
Sea Area Fitzroy
In 2002, Spanish Authorities requested that the Met Office change the name of sea area Finisterre as they used the same name for another unrelated area and they felt it caused confusion. After much debate the Met Office agreed. As you will know from the above text the Shipping forecast and the Met Office were both founded by Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy. It was fitting therefore to rename the sea area after him and break the tradition that each sea area was named after a geographical location, (natural harbour, fishing bank or island).
Mandatory Training for Seafarers
Despite Fitzroy’s fame as the Captain of the Beagle and as the forefather of weather forecasting he had many other achievements, often unknown but very notable to us was what he did with his time in the 1840s as an MP. He introduced a Bill which led to Ship’s Masters and Mates having to become qualified, thus starting the process which we at Chieftain Training are heavily involved with today.