100 Years of the Shipping Forecast

[Orion]

There are warnings of gales. Wintry showers, rain later, moderate or good. The familiar rhythms and cadences of these misty, magical phrases have now been familiar to British islanders for a whole century. They are communicated to us at strange, twilit times, every weekday at 12.48am and 5.20am, with an extra gust of early-evening drama at 5.54am at weekends.

The Shipping Forecast celebrates its 100th year of broadcast on the BBC in 2025, and this New Year’s Day, Radio 4 is going storm-sized in its appreciation. The simple bulletin, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (try reading that without taking on the measured, honeyed tones of a continuity announcer) is the subject of the station’s regular series that day, as well as several special documentaries.

Paddy O’Connell begins the celebrations with The Shipping Forecast: A Beginners Guide before Radio 4 announcers send special audio “postcards” from different shipping locations such as Dogger and Lundy mid-morning. Later in the day, Front Row is hosting an outside broadcast from the Cutty Sark, featuring guests such as Meg Clothier, sailor, lifelong forecast listener and author of The Shipping Forecast: 100 Years. The appeal of the forecast is huge and mysterious, she says, anchored as it is to universal elements. “The words and the rhythms are sort of bigger than the here and now.”

The forecast also attracts very different people, says Clothier: geeky people “who like detail and facts” and those who like its “more emotional, otherworldly, poetical aspect”; people who like to be “safe and cosy at home”, as well as those who like adventure and risk; plus people at both ends of the political spectrum. “It articulates quite a positive sort of nationalism, where we can be proud of where we live as a place we all share – especially as the Shipping Forecast ignores political and country boundaries. It offers a positive sense of belonging, a sense of home. Plus when you talk to people about it, immediately they start talking about their dad, their grandad or their uncle. It offers that line through time.”

The Shipping Forecast’s own timeline begins in mid-19th century maritime Britain. Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, a seasoned seaman who had taken Charles Darwin with him on The Beagle, got a job analysing past weather data in 1854, but he ambitiously aimed to predict future weather, too. The invention of the electric telegraph, which could propel information about weather systems across the North Atlantic, helped FitzRoy along. So did a sense of urgency following the 1859 Royal Charter disaster, where more than 450 people drowned off the Anglesey coast.

FitzRoy also invented weather maps, which he called “synoptic charts”, a reference to the New Testament’s synoptic gospels and their all-seeing perspective on the miracles they saw. His first weather warning, of a gale on the north-east coast, went out two years later; radio transmission began in 1911; the BBC sent them out in all winds and weathers from October 1925. A calm, knowledgable voice taking the listener from south-east Iceland to the German Bight was suddenly part of our culture, an all-seeing being who could tell all of us what was to come.
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More at link: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/ ... g-forecast

[Simon Culling]

Thanks for posting this piece, Orion. The Shipping Forecast has fond memories for me and I can still narate the sea areas in order from NE Scotland counterclockwise around the UK and ending with SE Iceland. I used to listen to it as a nipper to get the synoptic details (i.e. positions and pressures of the highs and lows in NW Europe) and also the coastal observations of wind, weather, pressure etc. No internet in those days and the Shipping Forecast was a good twice daily source of actual weather observations - the only other sources were two Volmet services for aviation that provided METARS for the major airports. I used to listen to the 00:33 broadcast most days, but had to do so with a one piece headphone so I did not get caught!!

[TonyT]

Thanks for posting this piece, Orion. The Shipping Forecast has fond memories for me and I can still narate the sea areas in order from NE Scotland counterclockwise around the UK and ending with SE Iceland. I used to listen to it as a nipper to get the synoptic details (i.e. positions and pressures of the highs and lows in NW Europe) and also the coastal observations of wind, weather, pressure etc. No internet in those days and the Shipping Forecast was a good twice daily source of actual weather observations - the only other sources were two Volmet services for aviation that provided METARS for the major airports. I used to listen to the 00:33 broadcast most days, but had to do so with a one piece headphone so I did not get caught!!

Ahh, the lilting Irish voice at about 3 minutes past the hour - "Shannon volmet, Shannon volmet, Shannon volmet"!

[Simon Culling]

Shannon Volmet was one of the stations my shortwave radio could pick up - the three London Volmet broadcasts were on the airband section of FM (beyond 108MHz) and had a continuous loop of METARS for the UK and near continent. You needed a specific airband radio to get this and local ATIS reports from smaller airports. Also on shortwave was a station called RAF Volmet which had hourly reports of another 30 or so military sites in the UK. This site's output was garbled, but with a bit of practice and patience I was able to 'decode' this broadcast, so massively expanding the coverage I could get for the UK. However, it took a lot of time and dedication to collect all this information and with stations such as Shannon Air Radio (its old name), you had to listen at specific times past each hour to get the data you wanted. Great memories, though.

[Simon Culling]

I have attached a map of the sea areas for those not familiar with them. FitzRoy was originally titled Finisterre, but was renamed in 2002.

On the current forecast for New Years Day there are gale warnings in 18 of the areas and up to Storm Force 10 (on the beaufort scale) for German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover + Wight.

[TonyT]

472688806_1009632387866341_4573849606957777069_n.jpg

[TonyT]

You can listen to the latest issue
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qfvv

[Simon Culling]

Thanks for posting that old map from 1956, Tony. I was not aware of the other named areas beyond that of the British coastal waters. Following the Shipping Forecast is a separate broadcast for coastal waters of the UK (excluses Eire) and a further set of observations. This is aimed at coastal fishermen and yachts.

The strongest wind forecast I can remember was for Hurricance Force 12 (on the Beaufort scale) as Storm Braer approached the northwest of the UK back in January 1993.