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1854: The Met Office is founded to provide information
on the weather and marine currents to the marine community.
This small department of the Board of Trade is headed by
Captain (later Rear-Admiral) Robert
FitzRoy, RN.
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1882: Synoptic charts are drawn for the North Atlantic
for the period 1 August-3 September. These form the basis for
discussions about weather systems.
1909: Transatlantic shipping starts to use wireless telegraphy
to transmit weather messages ashore.
1914-1918: The Great War highlights the importance of
weather forecasts for military operations.
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1922: Lewis
Fry Richardson experiments with numerical forecasting
methods, but the equations are too long and complex to produce
useful results by manual calculation.
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1939: The start of World War II sees the introduction
of radiosondes to gather observations
from the upper air - a collection of balloon-borne sensors transmit
data on pressure, temperature and humidity to receiving sites
on land. Later developments in radar
enabled upper winds to be computed.
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1940: The Met Office moves from London to wartime
accommodation at Dunstable. (As a temporary measure the
Forecast Division moves to Birmingham at three days' notice
- without breaking the flow of data to outstations.)
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1942: The Meteorological Research Flight is formed using
aircraft of the RAF.
1944: The RAF Chief Meteorologist - Group Captain James
Stagg (a Met Office employee) briefs General Dwight D Eisenhower
on 5 June that a 36-hour 'weather window' is imminent. This prompts
Eisenhower to order the start of Operation Overlord on 6 June.
(The D-Day landings had been planned for 5 June, but had been
delayed by 24 hours the previous day owing to bad weather.)
1946: Under recommendations of the International Civil Aviation
Organization and the International Meteorological Organization, 13
permanent North Atlantic stations (maintained by a consortium of eight
countries) are set up to provide vital marine weather data. The Met
Office (for the UK) uses four converted ex-Royal Navy corvettes to
man two stations and share the operation of another.
1953: A severe depression and storm surge in the North
Sea causes catastrophic flooding
in south-east England. This leads to planning and eventual construction
of the Thames Barrier, also the development of the Met Office's
Storm Tide Forecasting Service.
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1954: The first live BBC Television forecast, lasting
five minutes, was made by Met Office forecaster George
Cowling.
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1958: The Met Office becomes an approved place of deposit
for weather records under the Public Records Act.
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1959: London
Weather Centre opens. In Bracknell, the first turf is
turned for the new headquarters building.
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1962: Her Majesty the Queen performs the official opening
ceremony at Bracknell. The Met Office takes delivery of its first
electronic computer so that numerical forecast techniques can
be applied operationally.
1964: The first operational satellite images become available.
1972: An IBM 360/195 computer is installed in the Richardson
Wing of the Bracknell headquarters, creating the world's most
technically advanced forecast centre.
1973: The UK joins the European Centre for Medium-range Weather
Forecasts (based at Reading) as one of the founding members to support
the production and research into medium-range forecasts.
1974: The Met Office takes part in the first global observing
field experiment.
1978: The US Tiros-N satellite is launched. It carries
the first Met Office stratospheric sounding unit, designed to
make world-wide measurements of stratospheric temperature.
1981: The Met Office's first supercomputer
- the Cyber 205 - is installed to run the new 15-level atmospheric
model. The airborne spread of foot-and-mouth disease to livestock
on the south coast of England is predicted, and subsequently happens.
1982: The first global operational forecasting model is
introduced to assist in operations for the Falklands War.
1984: World Area Forecasting Centre status for aviation
is accredited to the Met Office.
1985: British scientists detect sharp seasonal reductions
in the earth's stratospheric ozone layer.
1986: An explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor leads
to the creation of the Nuclear Accident Model which is used to
model the dispersion of a wide range of atmospheric pollution
problems.
1987: A severe storm inflicts
major damage to large areas of southern and south-east England.
It leads to a review of forecasting methods and the development
of the National Severe Weather Warning Service.
1988: A new supercomputer - the ETA 10 - is installed.
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1990: The Met Office becomes an Executive Agency
of the Ministry of Defence.
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| M. Neubert, MP and John Houghton,
CE with the Executive Agency Framework Document at the opening
of the Executive Agency on 2 April 1990 |
Accurate predictions and warnings are issued by the Met Office
for a major storm to cross the UK and parts of north-west Europe
during 25 and 26 January.
The Met Office Hadley Centre is opened.
1991: A Cray Y-MP supercomputer is installed and, for
the first time, a single numerical model (merging ocean and atmosphere)
is used for climate and weather prediction.
1996: A network of European national meteorological services
(EUMETNET) is established with the help of the Met Office.
The Met Office becomes a Trading Fund.
1998: Volcanic activity in Iceland releases vast quantities
of ash into the atmosphere. The Met Office's dispersion model
successfully predicts how it will behave and so averts aircraft
disasters.
2001: During the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease the Met
Office provides a range of services to Defra and other UK government
departments involved in disease control in this country and the near
continent.
2002: The Met Office provides guidance and support to
senior planners and operational staff for Operation Veritas in
Afghanistan. The Mobile Meteorological Unit is deployed to theatre.
With the construction of a new headquarters building in Exeter
nearing completion, the Met Office starts a gradual relocation
of its entire operation to the new site.
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2003: One of the world's fastest supercomputers
- the NEC
SX-6 - is installed at the Met Office. It will further
improve numerical prediction capability.
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For Operation Telic in Iraq the coalition joint operational area
forecast is developed with the US. The Mobile Meteorological Unit
is deployed to theatre.
During the year it is 'business as usual' as the Met Office continues
- and completes - its relocation programme.
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2004: The Met Office's new headquarters
in Exeter is fully operational.
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