Met Office celebrates 170 years of forecasting

Today, the Met Office celebrates its 170^th birthday. Since its very beginnings on 1 August 1854, the organisation has been a pioneer of weather and climate science, and it is now one of the leading forecasting and research centres in the world.

We gather around 200 billion weather observations a day, generating in the region of 3,000 forecasts from our advanced atmospheric model and a supercomputer which can perform 14,000 trillion calculations per second.

Although over the years our technical advances have been vast, our purpose is no different today than it was then;

‘Helping you make better decisions to stay safe and thrive.‘

On the 1 August 1854, Vice Admiral Robert FitzRoy was appointed by the Board of Trade to lead the fledgling Meteorological Office, whose purpose was to further understand the nature of the weather in the oceans, particularly the Atlantic Ocean, in order to protect life and property at sea.

FitzRoy believed we could save lives at sea by understanding weather patterns. In 1859, a violent storm wrecked the ship Royal Charter and many others, costing the lives of hundreds of people.

FitzRoy believed this kind of event could be forecast in advance – giving people the necessary time to prepare. This belief led to the launch of a national storm warning system and the writing of the first public weather forecast on 31 July 1861, which appeared in The Times newspaper.

Read more about our history here

Our impact

Since then, the Met Office has pioneered the science of meteorology and its application. Nationally, we help government, businesses, emergency responders, the public, and many others to make informed decisions.

We are the organisation behind many of the forecasts you see on TV, websites or smartphone apps, and we are responsible for the UK’s National Severe Weather Warnings.

On an extreme weather day, our public website and mobile apps see around 20.6 million page views and 2.1 terabytes of data downloaded.

Our forecasting has supported British and allied defence operations worldwide for more than 100 years. From our crucial D-Day landings forecast, to our Mobile Met Unit today, who continue to support the armed forces wherever they are in the world.

Every day our impact can be seen on a regional, national and international scale. Our forecasts:

• keep airlines flying safely
• our roads flowing freely
• our railway lines working efficiently
• help our utilities companies keep the power on

Exceptional science and ground-breaking research

We’re also advancing global understanding of our changing climate through ground-breaking research that underpins critical services vital for UK resilience, supporting communities, industry and government to better prepare for future climate risk.

Through the work of the Hadley Centre Climate Programme and our UK Climate Projections analysis tool, we provide authoritative scientific advice to government and customers on climate. We employ more than 500 scientists, who have had over 6,000 peer-reviewed papers published since 1981.

The Met Office has contributed to all six IPCC Assessment Reports and through our consultancy services, our experts give crucial advice and support that leads to effective action being taken when it matters.

Looking further ahead, our investment in data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence will help us meet the challenges of the future.

Met Office Chief Executive Professor Penny Endersby said in an interview with Civil Service World magazine:

“I am proud every day of the difference we make to the lives of people in the UK and across the globe and the contribution we make to ensuring that the challenges from a changing climate are understood, and the world is as prepared as possible to limit warming and adapt to the changes which are already inevitable.”

Read the full interview with Professor Penny Endersby.

If you’d like to find out more about our history, check out our National Meteorological Archive and our Digital Library and Archive, which includes digital copies of some of our unique and fascinating archive treasures.

Take a look at our Google Arts and Culture project page that brings to life highlights from the National Meteorological Archive alongside the current work of the Met Office in a series of digital stories.

You can get an accurate weather forecast  by using our mobile app, which is available for iPhone from the App store and for Android from the Google Play store, by using our forecast pages and by following us on Twitter and Facebook.