Michael Fish MBE

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

 (born 27 April 1944 in Eastbourne

Eastbourne

Eastbourne is a large town and borough in East Sussex, on the south coast of England between Brighton and Hastings. The town is situated at the eastern end of the chalk South Downs alongside the high cliff at Beachy Head...

, East Sussex

East Sussex

East Sussex is a county in South East England. It is bordered by the counties of Kent, Surrey and West Sussex, and to the south by the English Channel.-History:...

) is a semi-retired British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 weather forecaster

Weather forecasting

Weather forecasting is the application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere for a given location. Human beings have attempted to predict the weather informally for millennia, and formally since the nineteenth century...

, best known for his BBC Weather

BBC Weather

BBC Weather is the BBC's department in charge of preparing and broadcasting weather forecasts and is now part of BBC News. The broadcast meteorologists are employed by the Met Office...

 television presentations, although he was actually employed by the Met Office

Met Office

The Met Office , is the United Kingdom's national weather service, and a trading fund of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills...

.

He became infamous in the wake of the Great Storm of 1987

Great Storm of 1987

The Great Storm of 1987 occurred on the night of 15/16 October 1987, when an unusually strong weather system caused winds to hit much of southern England and northern France...

; a few hours before the storm broke, on 15 October 1987, he said during a forecast: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way...