Photos: Met Office powers ahead

The Met Office began in London with the advent of the Royal Flying Corps in the 1910s, when pilots found that high winds could ground their aeroplanes.

There have been many landmarks since 1924, when the first shipping forecast was broadcast. The resultant mapping of the seas around Britain helped radio stations to tell fisherman when they needed to stay at home.

Another landmark came in 1987, when BBC weatherman Michael Fish failed to reveal the near-hurricane that was about to hit the UK. Although this incident is remembered by the public as a joke, Fish is seen as anything but that to weathermen, who regard him as the man who, in recent times, put weather reporting on the map.

However, then prime minister Margaret Thatcher was so angry at the embarrassment caused by the apparently mistaken broadcast that she demanded action. The Met Office pointed out the scant resources it had, and immediately started planning new supercomputers for more accurate predictions. It has had considerably more funding ever since.