On Sunday, 11th January 2004, the BBC and the Met Office are celebrating their 50th anniversary of live weather broadcasts.

The past…
Meteorology may well have been the first science. However, before becoming a science, the first meteorologists were the shamans and priests of early communities whose tasks involved appeasing the gods who controlled the weather!

The present…
Every main BBC centre in the English regions and the nations has its specialist forecasting team concerned with the weather for that region. The Met Office provides the meteorological data and their association with the BBC goes back over 60 years.

What many people do not realise is that weather presenters do not have an autocue facility like the news and sports presenters do. This means that they have to know exactly what they need to say about the weather, and link their charts to the weather story they are relaying.

Nowadays, the charts are no longer visible to the weather presenter, but only to the viewers, since the BBC uses the process of colour separation overlay (CSO - more commonly referred to as 'Blue Screen') to transmit the weather charts.

Having created the charts using the most up-to-date computer software, and reported the weather during the morning or afternoon local radio shows, the weather story is usually well rehearsed by the time they get in front of the camera.

They then have to be prepared to extend or cut their weather story depending on news stories that either overrun or have to be cut. Frequently this is quite a tricky balancing act.

Nottinghamshire weather personalities
A very well know weather personality associated with Nottingham would have to be John Kettley.

He joined the Meteorological Office in August 1970, and between 1980 and 1985 worked at the Nottingham Weather Centre, as a forecaster and television weatherman for both the BBC and ITV.

In November 1988, the group "Tribe Of Toffs" released "John Kettley Is A Weatherman", which spent five weeks in the British charts, peaking at No 21 on December 24!!

In an interview with John Kettley he revealed a few high points of his time in Nottingham: "Life was a breeze at Wilson House on Derby Road for the first three years of my broadcasting career."

"Just one broadcast a day and the studio was just above Jaeger Menswear which meant I could nip down to the shop, pick out some jackets and rush upstairs to try them out - strobing was a real problem in those days."

"My first broadcast went okay I think - I survived to tell the tale and soon afterwards it was European Cup Final night in Madrid and Nottingham Forest were playing in the final."

"I correctly predicted a fine night in Madrid (not too difficult) and that Forest would WIN. No-one seemed to care about the weather in the Midlands that night so my passion for weather and sport together was established and destined to take me through to my now happy position at 5Live with major sporting consultancies agreed in the commercial world."

When asked about any specific incidents John responded: "The most bizarre moments at the BBC East Midlands studio? Two in particular.


"Firstly, acting as autocue controller for the late Denis McCarthy - East Midlands legend. He was doing a live piece to camera but his dodgy leg meant he needed someone to operate the autocue."

"Don't forget this was 'belt and braces' TV so I was lying on the floor out of vision by his feet moving the words through the camera head - a real art I can tell you (but very uncomfortable)."

"Secondly, joking one day that weathermen never needed to wear trousers as they were never seen in full view, the engineer moved the robotic camera up and down before transmission only for the hydraulics on the camera to fail."

" That meant that the camera was inoperative and resulted in one frustrated weatherman preparing to go live to a 'dead' camera just minutes away. Naturally the broadcast was cancelled, a script was read at Pebble Mill, and everyone vowed never to laugh about my legs again."

Following on from John the East Midlands has seen a number of weather presenters, most of whom are still regularly seen on TV:

The future…
With computer technology improving year on year, some advanced models are being designed specifically for meteorological purposes.

However, we will always need the human touch to interpret and relay this information to the general public, so weather presenters should be around for the foreseeable future.

If you would like to know more about your local weather presenters, or indeed BBC's national weather presenters check out the BBC Weather site.