The Shipping Forecast celebrates 100 years as a national institution on the BBC

BBC News

a day ago

The shipping forecast is the ultimate safety guide for anyone using the seas around the UK and Ireland but in the 100 years since it started it has also won an unrivalled place in the nation's heart.July 4 2025 marks the centenary of its first BBC broadcast. In that time it has prevented the loss of countless lives at sea.Over those decades it has also developed a cult following, lulling landlubbers to sleep, and inspiring music, poetry, art and writing. The rhythm and cadence of the report is unique, delivering a forecast for each of the 31 marine areas off our shores, loved by seadogs and landlubbers alike.
'Attention all shipping...'
These days there are a multitude of ways for the marine and fishing industries to get their weather reports. However, the shipping forecast, issued by the Met Office, external on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, external, means that those who can't access private reports can still get the information they need. A significant number of imports get to the UK via the sea. With climate change and an increasing number of extreme weather events, it's arguable that the shipping forecast is more important than ever. Having a permanent trusted source of information is also vital for our national security because it reduces any potential impact of someone deliberately issuing misleading reports.
'Warnings of gales...'
The forecast actually began as a concept long before radio existed, established in response to a tragic storm in the Irish Sea in 1859, when 133 ships went down and more than 800 people drowned. At the time Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy was head of the newly formed UK Meteorology Office set up by the Board of Trade. By 1861 his staff had set up gale warnings which were issued using the electronic telegraph.In January 1924 Morse code was used to transmit the first 'weather shipping' bulletin by the UK Air Ministry on its own radio station.Just 18 months later in July 1925 the BBC took over the shipping forecast as part of its public service remit. It has been broadcast every day since then apart from during the Second World War when it was deemed it could give a critical advantage to the enemy, along with our weather forecasts in general. The importance the weather predictions played during that time cannot be underestimated especially in planning top-secret missions such as the D-Day invasion.
'Here's the shopping forecast!'
Until very recently BBC Weather was part of the team along with the continuity announcers, which delivered the live bulletins - affectionately know as the 'Ships' - on Radio 4. It has professional and sentimental meaning to the Weather Centre, including forecaster Simon King, who inadvertently referred to it on air as 'the shopping forecast'."After spending so much time learning about the shipping areas and the pronunciation of things like North Utsire and South Utsire the first time I delivered the shipping forecast I said 'Good morning and now the shopping, I mean shipping forecast'," he remembers. "And my colleagues have never let me forget."Reading the forecast live is quite a skill as it has to hit nine and a half minutes precisely despite the script varying in length and it's full of tricky names and a series of disjointed words and phrases .Presenter Chris Fawkes said it was a challenge he relished. His colleague Matt Taylor used to make sure he hit the right moment by taking an alarm into the studio with him.One day though he forgot to put it on silent. "Just as I was coming to the end it went off, so I just grabbed, threw it under the table and had to suffer the huge embarrassment straight afterwards," he said.Darren Bett and Louise Lear have both found reading the Ships much trickier when you're not feeling a hundred percent."My biggest worry is that I'm going to sneeze," said Darren. "Now there is a cough button that you can press if you got a cold or something like that but there isn't a big enough sneeze button."But Louise Lear found another studio trick to get her through."One morning when I was absolutely full of cold, I couldn't stop my nose from running or from sneezing, so I had to very carefully just dip the fader on the microphone so I could take a cheeky sniff or a cough, and then raise it back up, and guess what, nobody knew," she said.But even the best laid plans went awry for Tomasz Schafernaker one morning when he'd been asked at read the forecast at short notice and tried to make himself feel more awake by drinking a bit too much caffeine just before he went on air."In the middle of my broadcast all the tea and coffee came back up and I was just sick," he remembered. "But of course I quietly managed to step aside and some else in the studio seamlessly picked up the forecast from where I'd left off."
'Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire...'
The Shipping Forecast always follows the same clockwise route around the UK and Ireland's waters starting at Viking, which gets its name from its location between Scotland and Norway. The areas are generally all named after local geographical features like sandbanks and rivers, however in 2002, Finisterre was renamed Fitzroy in tribute to the creator of the forecast. While BBC presenters have historically delivered it, occasionally celebrities have also got in on the act including writer Alan Bennett, Stephen Fry and the late Labour politician John Prescott. Poets Carol Ann Duffy, Seamus Heaney and Roger McGough have all found inspiration in 'The Ships' and it's been sampled by musicians including Radiohead, The Prodigy and Blur.
'Veering north-westerly, 5 or 6 later...'
For those in the know - especially those who need to know - the lyrical content of the shipping forecast is vital information.Others just love it for it's melodic structure letting the words wash over them as they drift or sleep or try to catch a few more minutes in bed first thing in the morning. As well as gale and storm warnings, the forecast details visibility, pressure system changes, wind direction and the general state of the sea such as smooth or rough. Words like veering and backing are staples, along with phrases along the lines of 'becoming cyclonic' and 'good, occasionally poor'.Once you get into the swing of it it's not difficult to follow and the Met Office provides a glossary of terms, external to help.In the last 100 years the forecast has undergone significant changes to keep up to date with new technology both in how the information is gathered and how it's shared. This work is ongoing and the Met Office is currently working with partners to assess how advance satellite data and AI models (among other things), could impact the service, and is looking at new ways to share the information including data being integrated on ships' display equipment. It is also backing the 10,000 Ships for the Ocean, external initiative, launched in June at the United Nations Ocean Conference, which aims to vastly increase the number of vessels equipped for ocean and weather monitoring.You can learn more about the history of the shipping forecast on the BBC on the Radio 4 and the Royal Museums Greenwich websites, external.