1854
The Met Office formed as a small department within the Board of Trade, under Captain Robert FitzRoy (famous for commanding HMS Beagle on Charles Darwin's historic expedition), to provide meteorological and sea current information to mariners.

1861
Sufficient numbers of regular observations were being received by telegraph from Great Britain and France to permit the issue of storm warnings to ports and forecasts to the Press. These services were stopped in 1866 on the recommendation of a Royal Society committee. Storm warnings were rapidly reinstated but published forecasts did not reappear until 1879.

About this time, the first international meteorological congress in Vienna established an International Meteorological Organization to further essential international co-operation. This eventually transformed into the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a specialised agency of the United Nations.

1912
Rapid developments in meteorology led to the establishment of the first outstation at South Farnborough to give advice to pilots.

1914-18
During the Great War, meteorological services were developed in the separate parts of the armed forces but in 1920, all four were combined into one organisation under the auspices of the Air Ministry.

1922
Forecasts were first broadcast by the BBC in 1922 and captions were shown on TV in 1936.

1937
The Admiralty took over the weather service for the Royal Navy.

1939
The start of World War II saw the introduction of a system for obtaining data from the upper air by 'radiosonde', balloon-borne sensors transmitting pressure, temperature and humidity data to receiving sites on land. There was a huge increase of staff during this era, with numbers rising to 6,900.

1942
The Met. Research Flight is formed, providing detailed measurements of a wide range of atmospheric parameters from Royal Air Force aircraft.

1952
After the war, a Directorate of Research is formed to control and direct the practical and theoretical investigations that were being carried out.

1954
First live TV weather forecasts started.

1959
London Weather Centre opened.

1962
The modern era was said to have arrived in when an electronic computer was installed at our new HQ in Bracknell.

1964
The first operational cloud pictures from satellites became available.

1981 Our first supercomputer, the CDC Cyber 205 was installed, and our 15-level atmospheric computer model was introduced. Read more about the history of computing at the Met Office.

1990
The Cyber was replaced by a Cray Y-MP machine, allowing the introduction of a new 19-level model and improved representation of atmospheric processes. The Met Office becomes an MoD Executive Agency in April 1990. A month later, the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research opened.

1991
A second Cray Y-MP was installed to support the climate research programme carried out at the jointly-funded (Met Office/DETR) Hadley Centre. Both machines were replaced by a single Cray C90 in May 1994 with a resultant six-fold increase in the speed of processing.

1996 On 1 April, the Met Office became a Trading Fund. A Cray T3E supercomputer was installed. The T3E is five times more powerful than the Cray C90 machine.

1999
A second T3E was installed, increasing speed and processing power yet again.

2000
A new corporate identity was launched, signifying a change in direction. The Met Office will no longer be focusing on 'just the weather' but will look at the impacts of the weather on the environment and will expand into environmental sciences, such as hydrology and oceanography.

2001 Construction of the New Met Office headquarters in Exeter began by the Stratus consortium comprising Costain-Skanska and Group4 Falck Global Solutions.

Forecasting the Nation's health releases the results of the winter pilot, which is then extended for another year.