(MENAFN- The Conversation) Like afternoon tea, red pillar boxes and bracing walks on crisp autumn days, there is something reassuringly British about the Shipping Forecast , broadcast twice a day on Radio 4, and three times at weekends.

Dogger; Rockall; Malin; Irish Sea: with its distinctive poetic rhythm, the bulletin consists of a gale warning summary, a synopsis of general conditions at sea and forecasts for each of the weather areas including wind direction and force, sea state, weather and visibility. All are essential information to ensure safe sailing for ships and fishing vessels.

This year marks a century since the BBC first broadcast on radio a dedicated shipping forecast from its station 5XX at Daventry on a wavelength of 1,600 metres. Now one of the longest-running radio programmes in the world , for many in the UK it has achieved national treasure status, not least due to its soothing theme tune Sailing By, composed by Ronald Binge in 1963 and added to the broadcast in 1973.

The sea around the UK is divided into distinct areas, each with its own name. Met Office

The forecast is produced by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, and covers sea conditions around the British Isles for the next 24 hours. The waters around the UK and Ireland are divided into 31 weather areas, each with a quixotic-sounding name which often refers to a local geographic feature. Starting with Viking (Viking Bank), the forecast proceeds on a clockwise route around the map of the British Isles to finish at Southeast Iceland (Iceland).

Each broadcast comprises a maximum of 380 words, depending on whether Trafalgar (Cape Trafalgar) is included. This is the weather station furthest from the United Kingdom and is usually only mentioned on the 00:48 forecast. It takes precisely nine minutes for practised BBC announcers to read the bulletin.

With its rhythmic nature and formulaic repeated phrases and structure, the forecast has even been adapted into a fortnightly BBC podcast, The Sleeping Forecast . Advertised as“a soothing blend of classical and ambient music” interspersed with bulletin excerpts, the podcast recognises the forecast's calming qualities and hypnotic ability to lull the nation to sleep.

The Shipping Forecast has also entered popular culture, inspiring countless songs, novels, films, TV shows and works of art. One of the most memorable is the sonnet The Shipping Forecast by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney in his 1979 collection Field Work, which captures how beauty and routine intersect. It was memorably read out on national poetry day in 2016 on Radio 4's Today Programme by King Charles, then Prince of Wales.

There are legions of other famous fans too. In 1988 Stephen Fry, with obvious fondness, parodied the forecast :“Malin, Hebrides, Shetland, Jersey, Fair Isle, Turtle Neck, Tank Top, Courtelle,” he deadpanned.

Former merchant-navy seaman and ex-deputy prime minister John Prescott read the 5.20am broadcast on Red Nose Day 2011, to support Comic Relief. Michael Palin, who viewed the forecast as poetry, picked Alan Bennett to read it out when he was guest editor of the Today Programme on December 29 2013. Bennett, with his distinctive Yorkshire accent took obvious relish in repeating the words“rough” and“very rough” when reading this lyric poem of places to the nation.

Early origins of weather warnings

Despite the Shipping Forecast's comforting nature and importance as a national cultural icon, it should be remembered that first and foremost it is intended to help save lives at sea.

Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, founder of the Met Office, created the gale warning service, the predecessor of the Shipping Forecast. Met Office

The first public weather forecast – published in The Times on August 1 1861 – was inspired by the tragedy of the steam clipper Royal Charter , sunk in a storm in 1859 with the loss of more than 400 lives.

The storm-warning service was the brainwave of the meteorologist Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who established 15 land weather stations using the recently invented telegraph to transmit to him daily reports of conditions at set times. According to Historic England , the public body that advises the government on important historic sites, there are more than 37,000 known shipwreck sites and recorded losses in England's territorial sea. Without FitzRoy's innovation, it would be much higher and more people would have lost their lives. In 2002, the weather area Finisterre (Cape Finisterre) was renamed FitzRoy in honour of the man who created the forecast.

Today, the Shipping Forecast is still listened to by many mariners around Britain, providing a safety net of good weather information to supplement the more advanced weather detection technologies available via satellite systems.

Yet, in 2025, with navigating the sea safely becoming increasingly challenging due to extreme weather caused by climate change, the 10,000 Ships for the Ocean global coalition initiative was launched at the UN's ocean summit in June. It aims to raise the number of ships equipped for weather monitoring at sea, providing data that improves weather forecasting and the effectiveness of responses to extreme weather events.

Such initiatives underline the crucial importance of global collaboration across maritime communities to continue to further improve safety at sea for the next 100 years.

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