Inside the Met Office

Explore a day in the life of:

• Forecaster in the Environment Monitoring and Response Centre (EMARC)
• Civil aviation
• Forecasting development
  
  
• The Met Office is an international centre of excellence for advice on the weather and the natural environment. We are world leaders in the provision weather-related services to a wide range of people
• The Met Office was originally created as a small department within the Board of Trade in 1854 to provide meteorological and sea current information to mariners. More about our history
• Our operational centre, main HQ and major research facilities are in Exeter, Devon
• We have 900 forecasters and support staff at 80 locations around the UK; at our Operations Centre in Exeter forecasters work a shift roster, so we're open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• We operate a network of observing sites around the UK, with many on airfields. The majority use people to make weather observations but we're making increasing use of automated systems, especially in remote areas
• We also operate two networks of forecasting offices, one specialising in information for the armed forces and the other focused on services to industry, commerce, the media and the public
• As seen on TV: forecasts were first broadcast by the BBC in 1922 (on radio) and captions were shown on TV from 1936, and the first live TV forecasts started in 1954; today, our TV and radio presenters are familiar to most people!