In the Dark

It’s broadcast four times a day on BBC Radio 4 and is immensely popular even with those who know nothing about shipping and live miles from the sea. The Shipping Forecast is as deep a part of British culture as cricket and standing in queues, although it doesn’t take as long as either of those things. It’s like a kind of soothing ritual that tells you that the world is still functioning despite all the stresses of the day. It’s predictable, safe and very conventional, like a meteorological version of the Anglican liturgy, but the combination of the mystical names with numbers and obscure formulae gives it a peculiarly pagan dimension.

I have to admit I’m an addict.

The Shipping Forecast is based on the division of the seas around the British Isles into a series of 31 areas, shown on the map, all with wonderfully evocative names. I was born in the Northeast of England so the sequence Forth-Tyne-Dogger always has a particular resonance for me, although living now in Cardiff I now find Lundy-Fastnet-Irish Sea is growing on me. The only problem is it sometimes sounds like Fishnet rather than Fastnet.

The broadcast of the Shipping Forecast always follows a strict format. It always begins with the words “And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at xx:xx GMT today.”, although some announcers may read out the actual date of issue as opposed to the word “today”.

First are the Gale warnings (winds of force 8 or more, on the Beaufort scale), if any (e.g. There are warnings of gales in Rockall, Malin, Hebrides, Bailey, and Fair Isle). This sometimes follows the opposite format (e.g. There are warnings of gales in all areas except Biscay, Trafalgar and FitzRoy).

The General Synopsis follows, giving the position, pressure (in millibars) and track of pressure areas (e.g. Low, Rockall, 987, deepening rapidly, expected Fair Isle 964 by 0700 tomorrow).

The forecast for each of the 31 shipping areas shown in the map is then read out. Several areas may be combined into a single forecast where the conditions are expected to be similar.

Wind direction is given first, then strength (on the Beaufort scale), followed by precipitation, if any, and (usually) lastly visibility. Change in wind direction is indicated by veering (clockwise change) or backing (anti-clockwise change). Winds of above force 8 are also described by name for emphasis, e.g. Gale 8, Severe Gale 9, Storm 10, Violent Storm 11 and Hurricane force 12. (See Beaufort scale). The word “force” is only officially used when announcing force 12 winds.

Visibility is given in the format: Good, meaning that the visibility is greater than 5 nautical miles; Moderate, where visibility is between 2 and 5 nautical miles; Poor, where visibility is between 1000 metres and 2 nautical miles and Fog, where visibility is less than 1000 metres. When severe winter cold combines with strong winds and a cold sea, icing can occur, normally only in sea area Southeast Iceland; if expected, icing warnings (light, moderate or severe) are given as the last item of each sea area forecast.

The extended shipping forecasts (0520 and 0048 GMT) also include weather reports from a list of additional coastal stations and automatic weather logging stations, which are known by their names, such as Channel Light Vessel Automatic. These are the Coastal Weather Stations, some of which are actually military bases. These add an additional movement to the Symphony of the Shipping Forecast. I’m a particular fan of Sandettie Light Vessel Automatic. It just sounds so good.

You can listen to an example here.

Deeply evocative, but with a perfect control of form and an economy of structure, the Shipping Forecast is ten minutes of pure poetry.

This entry was posted on April 16, 2009 at 10:08 pm and is filed under Uncategorized with tags BBC Radio 4, Met Office, Poetry, Shipping Forecast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.