50 Years of Meteorology at the BBC

Let's look back over those past 50 years. The first broadcast by a meteorologist was presented by George Cowling on 10th January 1954. From 1936, when the world's first television weather chart was transmitted, until then there had only been a script read by an out of vision presenter. George worked at the Public Service office in central London and would draw with wax crayon on large paper charts, roll them up and catch the tube to the BBC. He would then present a live 5 minute forecast before catching the tube back to his office and getting on with his 'proper' job. The Radio Times listing magazine carried the following announcement "from Monday onwards the television weather report and forecast will be presented by a Meteorological Office forecaster who will explain and comment on the charts shown. The change is designed to stress the continuity of the reports provided'. The forecaster will show, for example, how the weather expected tomorrow is conditioned by the weather experienced today."

Prior to the introduction of colour television in 1967 we had magnetic symbols. We starting using standard World Meteorological Office plotting symbols and, believe it or not, the British public actually understood them, or rather they didn't complain. We then progressed to symbols that were designed for us by a Norwich school of art student in 1975. They have proved so popular, appearing in text books, adverts etc that the BBC is finding it very difficult to entirely get away from them. They were magnetic also at first and the broadcaster would hold a fist full which he would proceed to scatter all over the charts during the broadcast, which by then had been cut to 2 minutes. The camera men used to think that it was highly amusing to reverse the polarity of the symbols so that they would shoot off and onto the floor!

We then took the plunge into computer graphics in 1985, again using the same symbols, but in addition receiving data and graphics direct from the UK Met Office computer.  At the time it was the most advanced computerised weather display system in the world and showed both forecast products from the Met Office and real time data, such as satellite pictures and radar.  More advanced graphics were introduced in 1988, followed by a major upgrade in 1996. This included full global graphics and forecast products, all in widescreen format.

At the start there was just 1 broadcast a day but that has steadily increased over the years to well over 120, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Most broadcasts are live and totally unscripted and by having fully experienced professional forecasters we are able to make last minute adjustments to the forecast, even whilst on air.  We are a one-man operation, preparing our own graphics, adjusting the camera, lighting, sound and doing our own make-up. As well as most BBC TV channels  and BFBS we also do numerous broadcasts on most of the BBC radio networks, again un-aided and provide pages for Teletext as well as dedicated broadcasts and data for BBCi.

Still at least I can say that I was in at the top. With the vast increase in channels now available to viewers in the United Kingdom (we now have well over 200, cable, satellite, Freeview, digital, terrestrial analogue, broadband etc ).  In the good old days with just two channels, it was quite common to have an audience of up to 18 million just for the evening weather broadcasts.  Then, as now, at least one million people switched on just for the weather and immediately switched off again after. That figure has remained constant but as audience figures for evening viewing on BBC are often no better than 6 million to still to get 1 million extra, just for us, is no mean feat.

Now, of course we have the new graphics - but that is a different story!!