How do you forecast the weather?

Chapter 1

Predicting the weather: The Met Office

The Met Office supplies websites and UK national TV and radio stations with information and weather forecasts. Tara Judah meets senior operational meteorologist Helen Roberts to find out about the first steps of predicting the weather.

Chapter 2

Reporting the weather: Livinia Nixon

Livinia Nixon has been a TV presenter on Australia’s Nine Network for about 20 years. Her ebullient personality has featured on everything from travel programmes and current-affairs panels to documentaries and game shows. Since 2004 she has also read the weather for Nine’s nightly news broadcast in Melbourne. It’s a role that has seen her gain reputation for being able to convert complicated meteorological data into breezy and digestible segments. So how does Nixon do it? Monocle’s Adrian Craddock meets her to find out.

Chapter 3

France’s shipping forecast

If Cromarty, Forth, Tyne and Dogger mean anything to you then you’re probably one of the hundreds of thousands of radio listeners who enjoy the UK shipping forecast, broadcast each night on BBC Radio Four. Like the UK equivalent, the rhythmic, almost poetic language of France’s shipping forecast has endeared it even to those who will never set foot on a yacht or trawler. But as Ian Wylie reports from Paris, budget cuts mean that the French are preparing to say au revoir to the meteo marine.