Rain before seven, fine by eleven
Red sky at night, shepherd's delight
Ne’er cast your clout before May is out
The first official BBC Weather book, celebrating the highs, lows, oddities and marvels of British weather.
A multi-faceted and versatile writer, Alison Maloney is the author of several books, including The Mums’ Book, The World of Mr Selfridge and The Official Strictly Come Dancing Annual.
There are very few subjects covered in broadcasting that affect us all, and that we all have an opinion about. How many times a day do you find yourself talking about the weather – even just as a passing comment about how chilly it is? Will it be a hot summer? A white Christmas? I need rain for my garden! According to recent research, 94 per cent of British people admit to having discussed the weather in the past six hours, while 38 per cent say they have in the past 60 minutes. It certainly is a British obsession, and for many of us, BBC Weather is the place we go to for trusted forecasts and expert information.
My interest in weather started from a young age – not in the sense that I wanted to be a Weather Presenter – but rather that I grew up in the stunning northwest Highlands of Scotland in a village called Morar, where we could literally have four seasons of weather in one day! This would, of course, dramatically alter the look of the landscape but more importantly to me in my youth, curtail my outdoor plans! In those days, weather forecasts were nowhere near as accessible as they are now, and we would have to wait until after the main news bulletins, and it was so annoying if you missed it! Nowadays, you can have weather forecasting on demand, for a wide range of locations in the UK and around the world. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would one day be presenting the weather forecast that I so relied on as a child, on the BBC.
The way we present the weather today is different from when I started as a rookie. In those days it was quite formal. Today it is still presented professionally, but in a much chattier style, and often it is placed within a programme rather than as a standalone item at the end of the news, allowing some interaction with other presenters in a studio. Aside from being more fun, it also gives us the chance to explain big weather stories in the UK and around the world, why things are happening, or simply to explain what a jetstream is and its influence on our weather, or where you are likely to see the Aurora Borealis!
But probably one of the main changes is our weather graphics. Remember CEEFAX? We used to have to input that data onto a computer – it was so fiddly often East Anglia would end up as an island and it would be a nightmare trying to join it back onto the mainland again! In those days, when I joined the BBC Weather Centre back in the 1990s, our television graphics were still the sunshine and rain symbols (very 1970s!) not the magnetic ones I hasten to add, but the computer generated ones! We would drag and drop a symbol on the map, which was so big it would cover a whole area. So, for instance, the Midlands would show a rain symbol for the entire morning, even if the rain was just for the early part of the morning and only affecting the west Midlands. The graphics would only change when the presenter clicked to move the charts onto the afternoon forecast. Of course it was the job of the presenter to explain all that. Then in 2005 the BBC introduced 3D graphics which completely changed the way we told the weather story. We now had graphics that moved around the UK to cover all areas, a clock that showed the time advancing through the day and night, and also moving weather elements – the cloud looked like cloud, and the rain like rain (albeit blue). This meant we could actually show what was happening where you were and what time you could expect the weather to change.
Now our graphics have changed once again, revolutionising the way we work. They look even more realistic and higher resolution data allow us to tell our audiences a more detailed story.
Of course one of the biggest changes over recent years has been the development of the BBC’s digital weather services. I’m proud to say that the BBC Weather app is one of the most popular of all the BBC apps and delivers a great experience for people on the move or wanting to know the weather instantly. Personalisation has also been a key development in our digital services, so our users can get the local weather for their own postcode. With our most recent re-launch we have refreshed our weather website and app – with new functionality and detail.
New technology now helps me do my own job better too particularly when on location for BBC Breakfast. I used to have to rely on colleagues to brief me. Now I have access to much more online and can see and edit my charts from wherever I am in the UK.
I work with some of the brightest brains in meteorology. It is a pleasure to work with them all and discuss how we see the forecast evolving. We are always learning including from each other. Meteorology is not an exact science – but it is a fun one to study. The weather always changes and bigger brains than mine are constantly finding new ways to make forecasts even more accurate. I enjoy looking at what the weather is going to be way ahead of what we broadcast. Just like our audiences, we are keen to know if it is going to be dry and warm for our outdoor parties too – and we are as disappointed as anyone if the weather turns out to be different than expected! But there is very much a serious side to broadcasting a weather forecast. Sometimes knowing what is coming your way could even save your life and we work closely with the Met Office to ensure that any weather warnings are issued as quickly as possible.
Among the hundreds of weather broadcasts that I and my BBC colleagues do each day, one of the most treasured is the Shipping Forecast. It’s a British institution in its own right these days – loved for its poetry and rhythm as well as being of utmost importance to people at sea for work or pleasure. The Shipping Forecast is one of a range of marine weather forecasts that is owned by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and we partner with them to ensure that these are made available to the public.
So you see, it is not just you who talks about the weather – we do too! It is our passion and obsession.
I do hope you enjoy reading this book. You will learn there is a lot more to weather than you may have thought!
Carol
The weather is nothing new. Since time began, man has battled wind, rain, hail and snow and basked in glorious sunshine. But the ability to predict the weather has become an essential part of modern life for everyone from farmers, pilots and sailors to families planning a weekend and organisers of social events. So where did it all start?
Man has been trying to master the art of forecasting the weather since civilisation began. The ancient Babylonians, in around 650 BC, used the appearance of clouds and other changes in the sky such as haloes around the sun and moon to predict what was to come, while the Chinese, circa 300 BC, attempted long-term predictions, creating a solar calendar which divided the year into twenty-four festivals, each associated with a different weather pattern. They also used the behaviour of wildlife to predict short-term weather. A cricket chirping at night, for example, indicated a fine day to come.
But it was the Ancient Greeks, and particularly Aristotle, who took weather forecasting to a whole new level. In 371 BC, Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus produced a book on weather forecasting called The Book of Signs. Thirty years later, in 340 BC, Aristotle wrote a four-volume tome called Meteorologica, which asserted that all things were made from four elements – fire, air, water and earth – and noted numerous observations on the weather. It described the cycle of water vapour rising from the earth under certain conditions in order to form clouds and ultimately rain, and detailed the formation of hurricanes, hail, snow and thunderstorms. For example, he wrote: ‘Both dew and hoar-frost are found when the sky is clear and there is no wind. For the vapour could not be raised unless the sky were clear, and if a wind were blowing it could not condense.’ On lightning, he observed, ‘When there is a great quantity of exhalation and it is rare and is squeezed out in the cloud itself, we get a thunderbolt.’
The treatise closely linked changing conditions to astronomy and, although many of his theories would later be found to be inaccurate, it established Aristotle as the father of meteorology. In fact, it was not until the seventeenth century that many of his ideas were challenged and disproved.
The title of Aristotle’s breakthrough work also explains why forecasting is known as meteorology. The word is derived from the Greek meteoros, meaning ‘high up’ or ‘in the air’, and logia, meaning to study and discuss. The Ancient Greek astronomers believed the weather was closely related to the stars and planets and that anything that came from the sky, including snow, hail, etc., was classed as a meteor.
The first instruments to help measure the weather began to appear in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In 1480, Leonardo da Vinci built the first basic hygrometer, to measure the humidity of air, and in 1593 Italian physicist Galileo Galilei invented a thermoscope – the forerunner of the thermometer – after noticing that the density of a liquid changes in proportion to its temperature. Exactly fifty years later, his countryman Evangelista Torricelli invented the barometer to measure atmospheric pressure.
In 1805, Irish-born sailor Sir Francis Beaufort was serving on the HMS Woolwich when he devised a scale for measuring the strength of winds. Almost thirty years later, when he became the Royal Navy’s Hydrographer – a scientist who studied properties of the ocean for navigational purposes – the scale was officially adopted and was first used on the HMS Beagle, under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, who went on to set up the first Meteorological Office.
The scale initially classed winds from 0 to 12. Rather than wind speed, Beaufort based the readings on the effect on the ship’s sails running from 0 (‘calm’) and 1 (‘just sufficient to give steerage’) to 12 (‘that which no canvas sails could withstand’). With the advent of steam power in the early twentieth century, the descriptions were changed from how the sails behaved to the sea itself. In 1923, Met Office Director George Simpson added the likely effect on land. The scale was extended to include forces 13 to 17 in 1946, but these were so rarely used that they were eventually dropped in most countries and the World Meteorological Organization’s official scale only included 1–12. Only Taiwan and China, where typhoons are more common, still use the extended scale.
While instruments for measuring and recording weather were refined throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it was the invention of the telegraph in the mid-nineteenth century which opened up a network for weather observers and data collectors to communicate – and the creation of the first weather maps.
The Smithsonian Institution got the ball rolling in 1849 by supplying weather instruments to telegraph companies, who found 150 volunteers across the USA to take readings which were then fed back allowing the Smithsonian to map out wind and storm patterns. Soon weather observation stations began springing up all over the world and the information shared saw the birth of synoptic weather forecasting, meaning the data was recorded at intervals of six hours.
The British Meteorological Society was formed in 1850 by a group of ten astronomers and meteorologists in order to promote the ‘advancement and extension of meteorological science by determining the laws of climate and of meteorological phenomena in general’. In 1866, it was incorporated into the Royal Charter, and in 1883 it became the Royal Meteorological Society when Queen Victoria granted them the use of the prefix.
One of its founding members, James Glaisher, was a pioneering balloonist as well as an eminent astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Between 1862 and 1866, he made frequent balloon flights to measure the temperature and humidity of the atmosphere at its highest levels. On one ascent in 1862, he broke the world record for altitude, rising to an estimated seven miles above sea level. Unfortunately, due to the thin air at such an altitude, he passed out before he could take any readings and the pigeon he was carrying on board died.
In 1921, the group merged with the Scottish Meteorological Society, set up in 1855 by David Milne-Home and privately funded by landowners with a vested interest in advance weather warnings.
In 1854, despite advances in reading the atmospheric signs of weather, many still believed it could not be forecast. When one forward-thinking MP suggested to the House of Commons that they would soon be able to tell what the weather would be like in London, twenty-four hours ahead, he was met with roars of laughter.
Nonetheless, a small department called the Meteorological Office was set up within the Board of Trade that same year. Under the leadership of naval officer Captain Robert FitzRoy, the new section aimed to offer advice on likely weather events to the whole marine community. In the five years to come, 7,201 lives would be lost at sea and Captain FitzRoy believed many of those could have been saved if better weather warnings were in place.
In 1859, a tragedy that overshadowed all previous disasters struck on the high seas when a passenger ship, the Royal Charter, was caught in a huge storm measuring 12 on the Beaufort Scale. The ship – carrying 312 passengers, 112 crew and a few company employees – was returning to Liverpool from Melbourne when the high winds of over 100 mph smashed it against the rocks off the coast of Anglesey. Around 450 lives were lost, and only 21 passengers and 18 crew members survived.
In the wake of the terrible tragedy, Robert FitzRoy introduced a system of gale warnings which were issued to mariners whenever a storm was expected. He established eighteen weather stations around the coast, which used barometers and other instruments to gauge the weather and reported back to the Met Office by telegraph. FitzRoy would then study the reading and, if he thought a storm was imminent, he would telegraph a warning back.
A visual system of cones and drums, hoisted onto a 40-foot mast in the harbour, was then used to signal the sea conditions to the ships during the day, and lights after dark. For example, a cone pointing upwards indicated a gale from the north and pointing downwards, from the south. A lone drum signalled stormy weather, and a drum with a cone indicated a storm from the direction indicated. At night, three lights forming a triangle replaced the cones and four lights in a square, the drum.
The Times weather forecast for 1 August 1861, the first to appear in print, was produced under the heading ‘General weather probable during the next two days’. It came in the form of a table, charting barometer readings, temperature, wind speed, wind force and sea disturbance. One column also detailed the conditions with an initial, e.g. ‘b’ for blue sky, ‘c’ for cloud, ‘l’ for lightning, ‘h’ for hail, ‘r’ for rain and ‘s’ for snow.
The first forecast predicted London would be 62F, clear with a south-westerly wind, Liverpool would be 61F, very cloudy with a light south-westerly wind and Portsmouth and Penzance were set to be overcast, with temperatures around 61F. Dover was enjoying some especially warm weather with the thermometer predicted to hit 70F.
To help those heading to sea, predictions weren’t confined to the UK but also included Lisbon, Copenhagen, Brest, Bayonne and Helder.
The more general round-up at the bottom read:
North – Moderate westerly wind; fine.
West – Moderate south-westerly; fine.
South – Fresh westerly; fine.
East was omitted from the first forecasts but was added a few days later.
A year after the weather warnings began to be signalled to ships, Admiral FitzRoy’s first daily forecast was printed in The Times.
The first forecasts were surprisingly accurate and were greeted, on the whole, with high praise and wonder. A journalist in Dublin’s Freeman’s Journal wrote: ‘Persons have been astonished by the weather predictions of Admiral FitzRoy. They have been in the main most accurate, particularly in the direction of air currents.’
One paper, the Morning Post, bemoaned the passing of the more traditional folklore, saying: ‘The old adage “As uncertain as the winds” had ceased, we are told, to be a correct comparison, for the winds are said to be governed by fixed laws. To call a man “a weathercock” is no longer a term of reproach.’
Thanks to the coastal warnings and the daily print projections, the number of shipwrecks around the UK dropped and, for the most part, Admiral FitzRoy’s forecasts were a popular innovation. But the government was beginning to make noises about the cost of the operation, some scientists claimed the mariner turned meteorologist had no solid theory on which to base his predictions, and the press could not resist the occasional dig when FitzRoy got it wrong.
After one bad run, the Bath Chronicle commented: ‘Ever since Admiral FitzRoy took to telling us what to look for, the weather seems to have felt insulted, and to act as capriciously as a wit, who is asked out to dinner to amuse people, and revenges himself by alterations of dullness and petulance.’
After FitzRoy’s death in 1865, the work of the Meteorological Office came under scrutiny from the accountants at the Board of Trade, who believed the forecasts were not sufficient value for money. A Royal Society inquiry concluded that the storm warnings were ‘of some use’ but advised that the daily forecasts should be dropped. The last one was published in The Times on 28 March 1866, and weather maps did not return to the papers until 1879.
Admiral FitzRoy was 54 when his weather forecasts made him a national talking point – Punch even dubbed him First Admiral of the Blew – but he already had an illustrious career behind him and had found fame as the captain of Charles Darwin’s ship, HMS Beagle.
Robert FitzRoy was born into an aristocratic family in Surrey, the fourth great grandson of Charles II, on 5 July 1805. The son of General Lord Charles FitzRoy, a British Army Officer and aide-de-camp to George III, and his second wife Lady Frances Stewart, Robert FitzRoy was raised at Wakefield Lodge, in Northamptonshire. In 1818, at the age of 12, he was sent to the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth. Two years later, he was already on the high seas, embarking on a two-year voyage to South America on the frigate HMS Owen Glendower as a voluntary student and being promoted to midshipman while at sea.
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