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00:00I'm Michael Fish and I was a BBC weatherman for over 40 years.
00:07There's been a lot of snow in eastern parts of the country overnight and still quite a lot to come.
00:15And in October 1987 I drove a pillar box red Austin Maestro.
00:23We gave forecasts in Fahrenheit as well as Celsius.
00:26I've got nothing but bad news. In fact, we've got, if anything, trouble with the wind today, as you might say.
00:32And then, of course, there was this.
00:35Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way.
00:39Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, there isn't, there isn't...
00:47I've become forever linked with what followed.
00:51The worst storms for hundreds of years hit the south of England early this morning,
00:55killing a dozen people and bringing the whole southeast to a halt.
00:58Gales of over 100 miles an hour smashed buildings and caused millions of pounds worth of damage.
01:04There was no warning. The weathermen were caught with their forecast down.
01:11In fact, 18 people lost their lives in what was the biggest storm to hit Britain since 1703.
01:17There was a wall of cloud approaching from the west.
01:22We could actually see it coming towards us.
01:24The waves were going over the minibuses.
01:26It was absolutely terrifying.
01:28It still remains the most talked about weather event in a generation.
01:32This is a photograph showing what looks like somebody has emptied a bottle of matches.
01:39Amazing.
01:40It took weeks to clear it all up.
01:47For the past 30 years or two, I've taken the flak for getting this forecast wrong.
01:51So, I'm on a myth-busting mission to try and set the record straight.
01:56If you can't forecast the worst storms for several centuries, three hours before they happen, what are you doing?
02:01Hurricanes are completely different weather systems. They don't occur here in the UK.
02:06The great storm's well known. The story's been told.
02:09You can't go back and explain that the message did not occur across the night before.
02:12Thank you. Well, not too pretty a picture, as a matter of fact.
02:22There's been a lot of snow in eastern parts of the country overnight.
02:25When I started at the BBC, things were very different.
02:29There were no computer graphics and no weather satellites.
02:33Fairly thundery with some... Oh, dear. Let's do it again.
02:36Now, lurking behind me, there is another area of low pressure, and that's going to trouble things.
02:39By 1987, the dodgy suits were a thing of the past, and some basic satellite imagery was giving us a taste of the future.
02:48Pretty disorganised at the moment, but when I run the sequence...
02:51Back then, we relied mainly on weather balloons and ships out in the Atlantic to tell us what was heading our way.
02:58Here comes the rain again.
03:02Which leads me on to myth number one.
03:04That we had no idea any sort of storm was coming.
03:10The truth is, we did know stormy weather was out there, but didn't think it was coming our way.
03:18Even a week before, there were signs of bad weather in the Atlantic.
03:21It was so bad that the shipping we normally relied on for weather observations had cleared out of the area, meaning that we had even less data coming in.
03:31The data we did have was fed into the Met Office computer, and the models run a few days before the storm showed it tracking east across France.
03:43We were concerned about yet more rain after recent floods, but by Thursday morning there were only very light winds over most of the UK.
03:56And no sign that the depression brewing in the Bay of Biscay would actually come our way.
04:01Certainly nothing to stop Worthing High School's class of 87 from going to Dorset on a geography field trip.
04:12The waves have actually managed to cut through the limestone and form this very, very small pole.
04:19Aina Stevens was head of geography, and spotted something coming towards the south coast well before us experts at the Met Office.
04:29Well, we were actually at the southern end of Chessail Bank, where it joins Portland.
04:35And we were surveying the beach, and the sky was just incredible.
04:42Paul Kashmirak was also a Kenai Geography teacher, and filmed this footage.
04:49The air was completely different to anything I've experienced. It was so full of moisture. It was warm and thick.
04:57There was a wall of cloud approaching from the west.
05:02We could actually see it coming towards us, but we didn't know. We didn't know what was going to happen that night.
05:08We had no idea at all. We knew it was windy, because as the kids were doing their geography field work, they were getting knocked over.
05:18So, while the geography class was discussing longshore drift, I was giving my fateful forecast.
05:25Just after the lunchtime news.
05:27Good afternoon to you. Earlier on today, apparently a woman rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way.
05:32Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't.
05:35Time to bust myth number two.
05:36That I didn't forecast high winds.
05:40But having said that, actually, the weather will become very windy.
05:43But most of the strong winds, incidentally, will be down over Spain and across into France as well.
05:48But there's a vicious-looking area of low pressure on our doorstep, nevertheless, around about the Brittany area.
05:53There we go. A vicious-looking area of low pressure.
05:56Actually bringing, if nothing else, a lot of rain with it.
05:59But what I didn't know was that the storm was changing direction, and heading straight for Dorset.
06:04As the waves come through the limestone.
06:08After a very windy afternoon on Chesil Beach, the class of 87 went back to their caravan site.
06:14We watched the news. We watched the weather.
06:16It seemed it was going to be a windy night, but nothing too extreme.
06:23At the weather forecast the geography teacher's watch wasn't me at all.
06:27Bill Charles was on duty that evening, so Bango's myth number three.
06:31And his forecast was no better than mine.
06:37Well, that's what the situation was like earlier on this evening.
06:40It's associated with this quite deep low pressure area.
06:43And a few days ago we thought it would be coming a little bit further west, bringing the strong winds right across the country.
06:48But now it looks as though most of those strong winds will stay away, although it's still going to be very breezy up through the channel and on the eastern side of the country.
06:59Breezy up the channel?
07:01Worthing's class of 87 would soon learn both their forecasts were way off the mark.
07:09I've come along the coast of Worthing Beach to meet up with the teachers and some of their now grown-up pupils.
07:15Yeah, well, it turned out to be a really windy night, didn't it?
07:19Oh, yes.
07:20It was a crazy night.
07:22As soon as the caravan started to move off their supports, we thought we can't risk that.
07:28The caravan I was in literally leapt up in the air and started to roll down the hill.
07:34Well, before it got very far, I was out the door and I was knocking on everybody's caravan door.
07:40And we put 72 kids into two 15-seat minibuses and drove them down the bottom of the hill.
07:48Sarah, I gather you knew about it before I did because you were up and chatting away with your friends when you should have been in bed.
07:54We realised it was getting windy.
07:57We looked out the window of the caravan we were staying in and we actually saw one of the caravans go over.
08:03And she ran, I think, to get you teachers, you probably knew about it already.
08:06And I ran down to that caravan and looked inside and it was pitch black.
08:10And I just remember that feeling of, oh, my God, is there anybody in there?
08:14Karen, I believe you were a pupil at the time.
08:16Yes.
08:17What do you remember? What were your experiences?
08:19Well, I was 15 and we were all in the minibuses and we were very squashed in and there was lots of debris flying around.
08:24And actually off one of the roofs, a piece of corrugated roof came off and hit the side of the minibus that we were in and we all jumped out of our skin.
08:34It was absolutely terrifying.
08:36Martin, what do you remember of the evening and night?
08:38One bit I do remember is when we were being evacuated, we had to drive along the coastal front.
08:42Yeah.
08:43And the waves were going over the minibuses and the teacher that was driving my minibus, she was like, I can't see the other minibus.
08:49I said, just floor it. Just go through it.
08:51By 3am on Friday the 16th, the storm had cut a swathe through Dorset, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, then hit London and the south-east.
09:06The worst of the storm tracked through Essex and Norfolk and by mid-morning it was heading out into the North Sea.
09:13Across much of the south and east of England, people were waking up to entirely new landscapes.
09:18So the advice this morning very much one of take great care. Do not attempt to travel into work.
09:28Back in Swanage, the field trip survivors were sifting through what was left of the caravans for their belongings.
09:34My maestro is taking me along the easterly route of that storm.
09:50An easy trip now, but almost unthinkable 30 years ago, with 15 million trees uprooted overnight and the south at a standstill.
09:59Next stop, Wakehurst in West Sussex.
10:07Kew's country estate, now home to the Millennium Seed Bank.
10:11Dave Marchan has lived and worked here all his life.
10:16He woke up to a scene of devastation.
10:18So how many trees do you think you lost?
10:20Roughly 20,000.
10:2120,000?
10:22Yeah, 20,000.
10:23The garden out there, you can see across there, behind that, by Antonia, there was nothing there.
10:28Or there was one thing there. There was one sycamore tree left. Everything else was flat.
10:32Dave and his team got busy with their chainsaws.
10:38You were acting as a part of the emergency services, really?
10:42Yeah, it was quite interesting. Every time we thought we'd got something cleared, we'd pass it on to the police and another one would come up.
10:50And they brought some troops in and helicopters to try and help people.
10:54It took weeks to clear it all up.
10:56The formal gardens of this 16th century manor house, created over hundreds of years, were wiped out in a few hours.
11:09Well, I believe, in fact, good has come out of it.
11:13Yeah, it was ironic, really, because trees that we wouldn't have dared to take down, blew down.
11:19And it gave us such wonderful opportunities to open up new vistas and put in new plantings.
11:27Thirty years on, and even in a downpour, the gardens are looking pretty splendid.
11:37Still following the track of the storm, I'm now heading to a small town in Kent, where losing their trees didn't go down quite so well.
11:47I'm here to meet the people of Sevenoaks who remember their infamous night only too well.
11:52And the wind doesn't have a name.
11:55Hello, Maurice.
11:56Former mayor, Maurice Short, was a councillor thirty years ago, and on the night of the great storm, he raced here, to the site of the symbolic seven oak trees of Sevenoaks, and found six had been uprooted.
12:09And then we got up here, and of course, the sign of devastation.
12:13So you've actually got a paper at the time.
12:15That you see there.
12:16So this is the paper of the day.
12:17Well, a few days later.
12:18The Sevenoaks.
12:19Amazing, isn't it?
12:20Yeah.
12:21I gather one survived the storm.
12:22One survived is in the corner.
12:24Right.
12:25Over there.
12:26Obviously the biggest one, I suppose, at the moment.
12:27Yeah.
12:28So we're now eight oak.
12:30We're now eight oaks?
12:31Yes, we're eight oaks now.
12:32Right.
12:34The seven new oaks were planted by local school children.
12:38And they're thriving.
12:41The lone survivor may make them eight oaks, but after eight centuries, there are no plans to change the town's name.
12:48The trees seem to be doing quite well at the moment.
12:51I've got an awful lot of stick at the time from the people of Sevenoaks, but I think with a bit of luck they've forgiven me by now.
13:01Back then, Bob Ogley was the editor of the Sevenoaks Chronicle.
13:06He wanted to hire a plane to capture this moment in history on camera.
13:11Everything was so great.
13:13My bosses told me not to.
13:16They said, we can't afford it.
13:18So I paid for the aeroplane myself, thinking I'd get the money back from them.
13:23Yeah.
13:24But I never did.
13:25And you managed to get above getting?
13:27Yeah, we flew from Began Hill.
13:32Bob persuaded a local pilot to take him up in the only serviceable plane.
13:36This is a photograph showing what looks like somebody has emptied a bottle of matches.
13:45Amazing.
13:46Just matchsticks.
13:47But these, in fact, are oak trees.
13:49Later, Bob published a book of his photos.
13:52It became a bestseller, paying for hundreds of trees to be replanted, as well as a swimming pool, a present from Bob to his wife.
14:02Some present?
14:03Yes.
14:04Shall we try it?
14:05After you.
14:06Yes.
14:07Yes.
14:08But 30 years ago, people wanted to know why us weather forecasters hadn't seen this coming,
14:19with a bleary-eyed Ian McCaskill taking the first hit.
14:23Well, Ian, you chaps were a fat lot of good last night.
14:25Well, we have been forecasting high winds and gills relentlessly since Sunday.
14:31We admit, I admit, we weren't forecasting hurricane-force winds, and that's what we've got.
14:39And it wasn't long before the media latched onto my unfortunate choice of words.
14:44Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way.
14:49Well, if you're watching, don't worry, there isn't, there isn't, there isn't.
14:54If I had a penny for every time that video's been shown, I'd be a multi-millionaire by now.
15:02And what the world and his wife wanted to know was who was that mystery woman.
15:07Time for myth number four.
15:09When Michael Fish come on the TV, he did say that a lady had phoned him, but not to be so daft.
15:17Yeah.
15:18Well, of course, that was my mother, Doris from Melton, and she is 94 now.
15:22He was like Michael Fish.
15:25That was, of course, a spoof, though over the years various papers claim to have tracked down the mystery caller.
15:32More on that particular myth later.
15:35Fish, fish!
15:36Fish, fish!
15:37There's no doubt my gaff has provided rich pickings for comedians.
15:40Fish, fish!
15:41Mean and moody.
15:43Remember the three Ps.
15:46Poise, purpose, and porpoise.
15:51Cousin to the dolphin and lucky weather charm.
15:55Comedian Russell Layton is touring with his one-man show, Hurricane Michael, about me and our national obsession with the weather.
16:02It's like it's a family member, and some mornings you get up and it's raining again, and you're like, oh, how could you? This is the sixth day running.
16:13Sleight of hand on heart, increasing in intensity to sporadic outbursts of jazz hands.
16:20The eighties was riven with conspiracy theories, and one of the stories during the rounds was that the storms due to a Russian weather machine that they'd created, you know, the commies, the pinkos.
16:36Must have been a good weather machine, because wind speeds here in Schulerham were the highest recorded at 115 miles an hour.
16:45And if you think that's a tall story...
16:48It was two days before my wedding, and we woke up with the air raid siren going, so we actually thought the world had come to an end.
16:56I had this extreme urge, desire to go out and fly in the wind. I didn't.
17:07See? Russian mind control. And time to bust myth number five.
17:15I said there wasn't a hurricane on the way.
17:17Then, just hours later, parts of Britain were buffeted by the worst storm for several hundred years.
17:26I've come to New Broadcasting House in London, home to the BBC's Weather Centre.
17:31So, was it really a hurricane?
17:37I'm meeting someone who should know the answer.
17:39BBC weatherman Thomas Schaffernacker, a mere eight years old in 87, he's now a hurricane expert, just back from Florida.
17:50Hurricane Irma holds the record for managing to sustain Category 5 longer than any other hurricane in recorded history.
18:00Now that's a hurricane.
18:02Back in the relative calm of the weather centre, I'm hoping Tom can help me out here.
18:10OK Tom, well look, please, if I give you ten quid, will you back me up?
18:14Mine was not a hurricane. At least mine wasn't, yours was.
18:18You're absolutely right, it was not a hurricane.
18:22Hurricanes are completely different weather systems, they don't occur here in the UK, they have to happen over tropical waters.
18:29But, the one in 87 still produced hurricane strength winds, so you don't have to have a hurricane to make hurricane force winds, if you know what I mean, it can still be nasty.
18:40Thank you Tom, more from you later.
18:46In 1987 there was another hurricane threatening Florida.
18:50Same situation, that's why we expect Floyd to take a turn on off to the right.
18:54Hurricane Floyd was circling the Gulf of Mexico a few days before the great storm here.
18:59Which brings us nicely back to myth number four.
19:04The woman who ran the BBC.
19:08The great Michael Fish, give him a round of applause.
19:12After the show in Shoreham we do a Q&A.
19:15It's a chance to set the record straight.
19:17There was no woman caller. I made her up.
19:22A studio cameraman had told me that his mum was worrying about flying out to the Caribbean.
19:26And she was asking about a hurricane that was actually rampaging at that time off the Florida coast.
19:33And she was anxious going on holiday as to whether it was going to affect her.
19:37And I assured her most certainly that it wasn't.
19:40And it just happened to be in the back of my mind when we did the broadcast.
19:43And so this unfortunate phrase slipped out at the time.
19:48Slightly unfortunate.
19:50Good timing Michael.
19:51Good timing Michael.
19:56Ah, we're all laughing now.
19:58But at the time while we were on telly day in and day out.
20:02Us weather forecasters were employed by the Met Office.
20:05And they discouraged us from talking to the media about what had happened.
20:09Even though there were serious questions to answer.
20:11Even as the repairs and the mopping up get underway, people are asking, why weren't we warned?
20:17Didn't the weathermen know there was such a fierce storm on its way?
20:23Time to answer those questions now.
20:25At the Met Office's swanking headquarters in Exeter.
20:30I'm meeting my former colleague Ewan McCallum.
20:34A senior forecaster at the time, though not actually on shift the day of my infamous appearance.
20:3930 years is a long time, mate.
20:42It seems like just yesterday, as a matter of fact.
20:45We've asked to see old satellite photographs.
20:48Hand-drawn weather maps and handwritten reports from back then.
20:51What they probably even wrote in it.
20:53To see if there are any signs that were missed all those years ago.
20:57They talk a lot about heavy rain.
20:59Yes.
21:00And do you remember there was flooding?
21:02Yeah.
21:03Rather than the actual winds.
21:05Yeah, Bill Giles, that's right, in his presentation,
21:06didn't mention the winds at all, he just said breezy up the channel.
21:09And of course, in fairness, I mean, flooding was very high profile in the media.
21:13I see there were some warnings.
21:14For instance, we have here, Tuesday the 13th, storm force winds, Thursday and Friday.
21:20And then on Wednesday, we have an angry spell coming.
21:24I mean, for those days, even back in 87, my angry spell, I mean, that's quite emotive words.
21:31It is, isn't it? You wouldn't have expected it to be used.
21:33No, and what's disappointing is that message from the Sunday got lost.
21:38Now, the great storm's well known, the story's been told, you can't go back and explain it.
21:43No.
21:44Because at the end of the day, the message did not get across the night before.
21:49No.
21:50But nowadays, I'd like to think that angry spell and that message, the history of that,
21:54the memory of that, would somehow come across in the world.
21:57Yes, well, these days, they might issue a warning five days in advance
22:00and continue rolling right the way through the period.
22:02Absolutely.
22:03So there'd be no getting away from it.
22:04Absolutely.
22:051987 became a turning point. These days, computers can crunch 200 billion sets of observations a day.
22:19The results are sent to the BBC forecasters, like Tom, to translate into an accurate forecast.
22:25Well, the wind certainly rattled our windows last night.
22:28One of the things that we heavily rely on is running the computer model multiple times
22:34so that we get lots of different results.
22:36And the reason why we do that is because we feed the computer with slightly different information,
22:41a slightly higher temperature, a slightly stronger wind, but only by a fraction.
22:45And then we get lots of results.
22:47And if all the results are more or less pointing to a big storm or a spell if settled weather,
22:53we're confident that we've got the right answer.
22:56So do you think we'd pick it up today, the way technology has advanced?
22:59I think you would be able to predict a storm like the 87 one these days.
23:04You would see it on the satellite image.
23:06There's something called a sting jet, which is a very clear marker.
23:10You can see from space a particular cloud feature.
23:13They're only very short-lived.
23:15They don't often happen inland, and they certainly don't often strike big cities.
23:19They usually happen off the northwest coast of Scotland, but they're more understood now.
23:23And I think back in 87, even if you saw it on the satellite image,
23:27you wouldn't know what it was because it was poorly understood.
23:30And even when I was at university, the sting jet wasn't even that well known.
23:38So, back in the archives at the Met Office,
23:42was there a sting in the tail on those early satellite images?
23:46See, look at that zone.
23:48Yeah.
23:49I mean, that's basically what they call the sting jet now.
23:51This is very, very powerful, low-level winds.
23:54This is 3 o'clock in the morning.
23:56I think the storm was at its peak there.
23:58It was. It certainly was.
23:59And these powerful winds with mean speeds of up to 50, 60 miles an hour,
24:04we've got in excess of 100.
24:06We're battering, literally battering the south coast.
24:09Tell me why.
24:11And if we go back and look at Bill's forecast...
24:14Now, the satellite picture sets the scene.
24:16It shows the British Isles, in fact, is underneath there somewhere.
24:19There's the sting jet, staring us in the face.
24:22The important thing at the time,
24:24no-one discussed sting jets when it came to the Great Storm.
24:27It's only with hindsight going forward
24:29as that dynamical theory was developed
24:31round about, you know, in the 90s and 2000, sometime after.
24:35They went back and they actually analysed the Great Storm
24:38and found that it fitted well
24:39with this dynamical scientific term called the sting jet.
24:47There you go.
24:48It wasn't the Russians.
24:50It wasn't me.
24:51And I can't even blame Bill Jarts anymore.
24:54Ah, not again!
24:55It was the sting jet what done it.
24:57And if another one comes along,
24:59I'm confident that next time round
25:01we'll all get plenty of warning.
25:03So, at long last, my mission is complete.
25:09I won't be needing this any more.
25:11In fact, I feel an area of high pressure coming on.
25:14Yes, believe it or not.
25:16Dry, sunny spells, light winds and very warm indeed.
25:21What more could you want?
25:23Why does it always rain on me?
25:26Oh, no.
25:27Even when the sun is shining
25:29I can't afford the lighting more
25:32Where did the blue sky go?
25:36You can't afford the skin很 much
25:39Or...
25:40empreodes chyba
25:43Theania画
25:46Theania画
25:48Is one of the waves
25:49to минут Sure
25:51Who reminds me
25:53The inevitable
25:54Is one of the waves
25:56Or to embrace the bugs
25:57What do you think?
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