20 Facts About Michael Fish

Michael Fish joined the Met Office in 1962 and started on BBC Radio in 1971, moving to the role on television in 1974.

Michael Fish was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2004 Birthday Honours.

Michael Fish was retired and made his final forecast on 6 October 2004 on the BBC Ten O'Clock News bulletin.

That year, Michael Fish was awarded the TRIC Award for TV Weather Presenter of the Year and The Sunday Times gave him the honour of "National Treasure".

Michael Fish co-authored a book with Paul Hudson and Ian McCaskill called Storm Force: Britain's Wildest Weather, published in October 2007.

Michael Fish was awarded honorary degrees by City University London in 1996 and Exeter University in the summer of 2005.

Michael Fish resumed forecasting on BBC South East Today, providing holiday cover for the regular forecaster and has taken to acting.

Michael Fish is a patron of numerous organisations and charities.

Michael Fish has since retired from presenting his weekly forecast on Netweather.

In later years, Michael Fish claimed that he had been referring to that year's Atlantic Hurricane Floyd affecting the Florida Keys at the time, in a link to a news story in the BBC One O'Clock News that preceded the weather bulletin.

Michael Fish did go on to warn of high winds for the UK, although the storm that actually occurred was far stronger than he had predicted, albeit technically not a hurricane.

In reaction to the controversy, the term "the Michael Fish effect" has been coined, whereby British weather forecasters are now inclined to predict "a worst-case scenario in order to avoid being caught out".

The term "Michael Fish moment" is applied to public forecasts, on any topic, which turn out to be embarrassingly wrong.

Michael Fish said in a BBC interview that there was actually no woman caller who phoned in to the BBC regarding the storm, although over the years many have claimed to be her.

In 2012, Michael Fish worked with a fashion company to coordinate a BASE jump from a block of flats in central London to raise awareness of climate change.

Michael Fish appeared on dozens of other television programmes, ranging from scientific broadcasts to comedy shows and quizzes.

Michael Fish was on BBC2's game show Identity on 3 September 2007 as a TV weather forecaster.

On 18 July 2022, Michael Fish appeared live in the studio on BBC2s Newsnight for a discussion about the heatwave implications with Presenter Kirsty Wark.

Michael Fish repeated he had been advocating more use of Nuclear Energy since the 1970s and hadn't changed his view.

Michael Fish was widely quoted, this time telling the public that people should delay going into work if hurricane-force winds hit their area.