One of those Michael Fish moments...

Today's forecast has been superseded by events as quickly as Michael Fish's infamous words on the BBC weather forecast on 15th October 1987, when he spake thusly:

Earlier on today apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she had heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well if you are watching, don't worry, there isn't.

In the early hours of 16th October 1987, the worst storm since 1703 battered the South East of England. Trees were swept aside like matchsticks, a Channel ferry was driven ashore at Folkestone, cars and buildings were damaged by falling trees and masonry and eighteen people were killed in England. I remember the morning myself - I was living in Muswell Hill, working in Neasden and remember the extraordinary noise of the wind in the early morning - it wasn't really like the noise of wind, more like an express train rushing past a few feet away - and the aftermath of transport chaos on the way to work the next morning - I think I was one of the few in my office who hadn't heeded the severe weather warnings and actually turned up for work.

Rather less drastically, computer stuff won't be happening this end just yet, so my inane witterings and wibblings will be available for the World to see for a little while yet. Better luck next time.

To be fair to Michael Fish, weather forecasting is such a complex science that it's impossible for anybody to get it right all the time. And I believe that, technically, Fish was right - although the '87 storm has massively damaging gusts, it didn't have sustained* winds of 64+ knots or originate in the tropics, both of which are defining features of a true hurricane. Although he got some bad press, he didn't get nearly the sustained vitriol endured by the pioneer of weather forecasting, Vice-Admiral Robert FitzRoy, RN, or take it quite so hard. For some say that it was the attacks on his meteorological work (often by vested interests, such as fishing fleet owners who objected to gale warnings requiring their fleets to stay in harbour), which finally drove FitzRoy to suicide.

Alternative theories have been put forward for the motive which drove FitzRoy to kill himself, including the threat to his religious beliefs posed by the theories of his most famous associate, Charles Darwin - for the devoutly religious FitzRoy, for whom the words of the Bible represented unquestionable truth, had been the Captain of HMS Beagle on Darwin's voyage round South America and to the Galapagos. If you've any interest at all in this piece of history, I'd urge you to read Harry Thompson's riveting novel This Thing of Darkness**, which gives a compelling account of the Beagle's voyage. Others, including FitzRoy himself, have pointed out a possible hereditary tendency to depression, inherited from his uncle, Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, who had killed himself in 1822.

*i.e. lasting more than 10 minutes

** the review I've linked to highlights a few shortcomings in the book. I agree with some of the criticisms but, even so, it's still a cracking good read on several levels and it's a book which I'd happily recommend to anybody.