100 Years of the Shipping Forecast

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You may have heard Joe Duffy’s Liveline segment in July last year about the centenary of the BBC Shipping Forecast. It’s broadcast at 00:48 on BBC Radio 4, preceded by a short piece of light music, Sailing By, before the station closes down at 1 am. On long wave (LW), the frequency then carries the BBC World Service. For some, the forecast is like a soothing mantra, the repetitive structure and intonation of the words easing them off to sleep.

The forecast is also broadcast later in the day at 05:20, 12:00 and 17:55, and provides detailed weather reports and forecasts for the seas around the British Isles and surrounding European waters. (The “British Isles” is a contentious term, but then there’s the “Irish Sea”, so we’re sort of quits.)

In a documentary from January 2025, Kilcullen man Al Ryan, a BBC presenter, was among those who spoke about the Shipping Forecast. It celebrated its 100th birthday in the early hours of 4 July last year, expertly read by Al, who always signs off with oíche mhaith, before the national anthem is played and Radio 4 closes down.

The BBC World Service originally broadcast on short wave (SW) in Europe, but transmissions on the SW bands ceased in 2008 because, according to the BBC, “increasing numbers of people around the world are choosing to listen to radio on a range of other platforms including FM, satellite and online, with fewer listening on short wave”. It also broadcast to Britain on MW, but transmissions ceased in 2011 on 648 kHz due to budgetary constraints.

It still broadcasts on 198 kHz LW when BBC Radio 4 closes down at 1:00 am and the transmission network is handed over. This was useful for anyone with a bedside radio having an LW band. I’ve been listening to it and Radio 4 on and off since the 1980s, originally on my father’s old Philips car radio, with a car battery attached that I’d charge up every so often. An aerial strung between my bedroom window and a large apple tree improved reception.

FM wasn’t common on car radios that dated from the 1960s. However, with the amount of electronic gadgets in a house nowadays generating electromagnetic interference (EMI), including phone chargers, burglar alarms and broadband modems, listening on long wave has become increasingly difficult due to interference.

By the early 1990s, reception of Radio 4 and the World Service had become available on FM in most of the UK. However, it is only possible in some parts of Ireland or by increasing signal strength using an antenna.

Radio 4 transmissions on the LW band were scheduled to end because of increasing costs of maintaining the network, although the BBC had not specified a date in an article from 2023. Transmission is energy-intensive and parts for transmitters are becoming harder to come by due to the legacy equipment used. According to an article in The Guardian from 2011, only a small number of parts are still available for the transmitters. There is also a shift from listening on radio to online, and many radios no longer have an LW band.

A transmitter in Worcestershire and two additional transmitters in Scotland are operated by a private company, Arqiva. According to a more recent article on the website Keep Longwave:

“In personal correspondence seen by the Campaign to Keep Longwave, a BBC representative stated, ‘we have not made a firm decision as to when we will close the Radio 4 LW service’.”

On 11 May this year, the BBC finally confirmed that:

“Radio 4’s Long Wave (LW) service will close on 27 June 2026. We will broadcast daily on-air reminders to help everyone switch to other ways of listening.”

For those who have listened to the radio station on a bedside radio, it’ll be necessary to leave a modem on at night and use a tablet or phone for reception. The alternative is a radio capable of tuning to internet radio stations. A clock radio that also has presets for storing regular broadcast channels and internet streams may be even more difficult to find.

Apparently, Trident submarine commanders have a hand-written “letter of last resort” written by the British PM, detailing what to do if there is a nuclear attack. Supposedly, one of the checks to establish the continued existence of a government is to monitor Radio 4 transmissions, the long wave signals having a large range and subsurface penetration.

Linked content, courtesy the BBC. The BBC in no way endorses content on this blog.

 

Energy Saving Tip

Image public domain via Wikimedia Commons

If you had clothes on the line yesterday or over the last week or so, you'll have noticed there was "great drying". That's because winds were coming from a generally eastern direction and east winds are usually dry with low humidity. Unlike the prevailing winds that come from a SW direction, carrying moisture from the Atlantic, easterlies come overland from continental Europe and moisture content isn't as high. So clothes dry faster and you'll have noticed the ground and fallen leaves dried up too.
I bought a dehumidifier recently, mostly to deal with condensation problems in a utility room that isn't heated. Ideally insulating walls would help solve the problem, but this is a stopgap solution. The dehumidifier also comes in handy for drying clothes, but first some science. Skip it if you just want to know about clothes drying.

 

Relative humidity 

 

Relative humidity (RH) is defined as the ratio of moisture in air to the maximum amount of water that air can contain, expressed as a percentage. So 100% is saturated and 0% is completely dry air. In the winter in Ireland, humidity is typically over 80% and often near 99% on warm, damp days. Air can only hold a certain amount of moisture per unit volume. Once it becomes saturated, i.e a relative humidity of 100%, water starts to condense out. Now the amount of water air can hold depends on temperature. As temperature drops, it can hold less. That's what causes fog after a sunny day in autumn when temperature plummets and also why water condenses on window panes and cold walls because they're cooler than the ambient temperature in a room. So the RH of the air increases as it hits such surfaces and possibly reaches the dew point. (Not always though, because the RH may have been low to start with) The dew point temperature is the temperature that air with a certain RH and a certain temperature must be cooled to for it to reach an RH of 100% and condensation to occur.

 

How does a dehumidifier work?

 

A dehumidifier works more or less the same as a fridge. Coils in the appliance containing a refrigerant are cooled and a fan circulates air from a room over them. Air is cooled to below the dew point and water condenses out to be collected in a container. Usually a desired RH can be set on the appliance and it will cut in and out to maintain that set point. 

 

Drying clothes with a dehumidifier

 

If you can't dry clothes outside, you can put them in a tumble drier. That typically uses two units per hour. The alternative is to put them on a clothes horse or radiators, but that can cause condensation problems because the water has to go somewhere. Ventilation might be an issue if you're limited to where you can dry your clothes and opening windows isn't an option. An alternative is to use a dehumidifier to regulate RH so that clothes hung indoors dry faster. It isn't as quick as using a drier, but if you have a day to spare, it speeds things up by reducing the humidity, allowing water to evaporate faster. Dehumidifiers are cheaper to run than a drier, typically the power use is about 150 W, compared to the 2000 W or so of a tumble drier.

Ominous Cloud Formations

© Eugene Brennan

Some ominous mammatus-like clouds (often associated with thunderstorms) from October 2004. They were actually this colour. The billowing on the underside is caused by hail in suspension, being continually circulated by strong updraughts. Hail can move upwards and downwards, ice accumulating like the layers of the skin of an onion on each pass so that the stones can potentially grow to great size.

Severe Thunderstorm of 1985

Lightning possibly striking trees in New Abbey woods on the night of the event. © Eugene Brennan

Who remembers this, the severe thunderstorm of 1985?

On the night of July 25th, 1985 and into the next morning, we had probably one of the worst thunderstorms in Ireland. It resulted in damage to houses and crops, flooding and crows were killed by large hailstones. Phone lines were also damaged. There's even a long, multi-page thread about it on Boards.ie. Lightning and thunder was frequent while the storm was overhead, occurring every couple of seconds. I managed to capture this stroke from my bedroom window by leaving the camera shutter open, probably hitting the trees in woodland near New Abbey graveyard in Kilcullen, rather than the communal "piped TV" aerial, several gardens away. Unfortunately the photo wasn't great and it was overexposed and fuzzy, so I've been waiting for better photo opportunities ever since (including last night from 1 am onwards). I was a student at the time and working during the summer in Naas. Loads of phone lines were knocked out, the place was flooded and I remember having to explain to a P&T technician how to use a meter to check fuses. Training mustn't have been great in those days. 

 

This is the Boards dot ie thread: 

Severe Thunderstorm July 25th/26th 1985

The Met Éireann report on the phenomenon:

Exceptional Weather Events

and Des Cahill's report on the event, courtesy the RTÉ Archives site:

Freak Storm Causes Damage