A BBC and Met Office Partnership

The BBC Weather Centre based in London's BBC Television Centre, produces around a hundred forecasts every weekday, over 22 hours each week, as well as additional broadcasts over the weekend, for its national and international channels. Every main BBC centre in the English regions and the nations also has its specialist forecasting team concerned with the weather for that region. The Met Office provides the meteorological data and the presenters, who front the bulletins for the television and radio broadcasts, and are paid for that by the BBC. Their association goes back over sixty years and they have developed a dynamic working relationship during that time.

Currently there are 23 broadcast meteorologists based in the Weather Centre, who are employed by the Met Office, a feature on which the BBC places great importance. There are currently regular forecasts on BBC ONE and BBC FOUR, a forecast every hour on BBC World, and two broadcasts an hour on BBC News 24. The weather on BBC World is produced in association with the World Meteorological Organisation which enables the global sharing of weather data. In addition they present bulletins for the British Forces Broadcasting Services, as well as for the Heathrow Express high speed train service to and from Heathrow Airport.

You can listen to them on Radios 4, 2 and 5 Live. Plus there are specially recorded bulletins that can be seen on Interactive Television via digital satellite services. A number of other platforms from web, to digital tv, to wap phones and pdas also have weather content developed by the BBC Weather Centre. You can also find the analogue and still very popular Ceefax weather service on page 400. In addition, we provide forecasts to BBC Regions and Nations to support their own forecast teams, and to Breakfast. The tradition of live forecasts, as in the early days of broadcasting, is maintained today for most channels, but the length of each broadcast has fallen to between thirty seconds (five seconds for the morning summaries at 10/11/12 on BBC One) and four minutes.

A Purpose Built Centre

All of these forecasts come from the BBC Weather Centre at Television Centre. The complex opened in September 1991 when the team of forecasters assumed responsibility for BBC network radio forecasts as well as the TV forecasts they already produced. Five years later - in September 1996 - a new, enlarged and more advanced centre was opened on the same site. It incorporated a larger forecast office and a second TV studio - necessary to meet the increasing demands for weather bulletins from the BBC's new channels and platforms. The launch of News 24, in November 1997, led to further growth in the Weather Centre's output and this has continued with the new digital channels and other new media weather content.

The weather system is very cost-effective and is intended to be operated with the minimum of staff. It is probably the most cost-effective system of its kind in the world.

Operational 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the Centre comprises two television studios and one radio studio, a forecast office in which the weathermen and women work and offices for the BBC production staff and the graphic designers. There are a number of apparatus rooms to house the necessary computer equipment, servers and other technology needed for the various production systems. Forecasts are also delivered and prepared in the Breakfast, and News studios, where the forecasters work alongside the other presenters.

The BBC Weather Centre, during October 2000, carried out a major redesign of all its output and processes. The already complex graphics system became even more state of the art, permitting 3D graphics and animations and many other new features. Much of the design and branding of the maps and symbols was modernised to work across all the different channels and platforms that they are broadcast on. In addition, the website and Ceefax added many more city forecasts and lots of new content, including an educational site.

During 2003 and 2004, the BBC Weather Centre has been developing its plans for a new graphics relaunch and audiences will see the results of this from 2005.