Much ahead of his colleague, John Kettley, Fish had a record dedicated to him in 1985 by the punk group Rachel and Nicki called "I wish, I wish, he was like Michael Fish". It was in fact a white lie he made up himself, as a colleague in the studio (presumably a BBC employee, although Fish himself technically worked for the Met Office as a civil servant) told him his mother in Wales was going to Florida and mentioned she had heard there was a storm coming, so he thought it would be a good opening line to start the forecast with, and said "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC.". įish said in a BBC interview that there was actually no woman caller who phoned in to the BBC regarding the storm, although over the years many have claimed to be her. The term "Michael Fish moment" is applied to public forecasts, on any topic, which turn out to be embarrassingly wrong. In reaction to the controversy, the term "the Michael Fish effect" has been coined, whereby British weathermen are now inclined to predict "a worst-case scenario in order to avoid being caught out". In 2012, a clip of the bulletin was shown as part of a video montage in the London 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony. 15 years later he commented that if he were given a penny for every mention of that forecast, he would be a millionaire. Fish did go on to warn of high winds for the UK, although the storm that actually occurred was far stronger than he had predicted, albeit technically not a hurricane. But he did not mention Florida in his forecast, which was made amid widespread worries about a coming storm: that morning, the Surrey Mirror had warned of "furious gales", so both his caller and his viewers likely believed he was referring to Britain. In later years, Fish claimed that he had been referring to that year's Atlantic Hurricane Floyd affecting the Florida Keys at the time, in a link to a news story in the BBC One O'Clock News that preceded the weather bulletin. The storm was the worst to hit South East England for three centuries, causing record damage and killing 19 people. Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't!". He has since retired from presenting his weekly forecast on as announced on the 24 December 2021.Ī few hours before the Great Storm of 1987 broke, on 15 October 1987, he said during a forecast: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way. He is a patron of numerous organisations and charities. He resumed forecasting on BBC South East Today, providing holiday cover for the regular forecaster and has also taken to acting. More than eight years after retiring from the BBC national forecasts team, he made a return to regular forecasting, presenting a weekly weather forecast for. He was awarded honorary degrees by City University London in 1996 and Exeter University in the summer of 2005. Michael Fish also co-authored a book with Paul Hudson and Ian McCaskill called Storm Force: Britain's Wildest Weather, published in October 2007. That year he was also awarded the TRIC Award for TV Weather Presenter of the Year and The Sunday Times gave him the honour of "National Treasure". Michael can actually interpret the skies – he can do the weather forecast the hard way: the old way that people don't do any more, because nowadays most of the decisions are made by the computer." In a specially extended report fellow forecaster Ian McCaskill paid tribute to Fish in stating that "Michael is the last of the true weatherman you will ever see. He was retired and made his final forecast on 6 October 2004 on the BBC Ten O'Clock News bulletin. He joined the Met Office in 1962 and started on BBC Radio in 1971, moving to the role on television in 1974.įish was awarded the MBE in 2004 for services to broadcasting. From 1974 to 2004, he was a television presenter for BBC Weather.Įducated at Eastbourne College and City University London, Fish was the longest-serving broadcast meteorologist on British television. Michael Fish, MBE FRMetS (born 27 April 1944 in Eastbourne, Sussex) is a British weather forecaster.
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