George Cowling, television’s first weatherman passed away on Christmas Eve. Mr Cowling was 89 and died after a short say in a hospital. He joined the Met Office in the year 1939 and gave the world’s first televised weather forecast on January 11, 1954 from the Lime Grove Studios of the BBC. The day of Mr Cowling’s first weather forecast was windy, and he said that the day would be a good one to hang out the wash to dry.
In those days, television programmes in the BBC begun at 8.00 pm and the weather forecasts were to begin at 7.55 pm. So Mr Cowling had about four minutes and thirty seconds to fill after the announcer’s job was done. This over four minute slot is not as easy as one may think, for the presenter has to fill in fluently without using any script, which Mr Cowling managed pretty nicely. He was noted as saying that this unprompted fill-in time “before critical millions, could only spell one thing: unhappiness”
Equipped with only pencils, a rubber, a pair of dividers and charts, Mr Cowling had to measure isobar spacing to determine wind speeds. He then had to transport these charts to the BBC studios across London to the Shepherd’s Bush district in the west. Highly regarded by the weather team of BBC, Mr Cowling recalled an experience with Princess Margaret when she visited the studios in his biography. “We have some bad news for the viewers” said he to her forecasting frost. “That’s good news.” said the princess. “I love the cold weather.” “Perhaps ma’am” he eventually responded. “You do not suffer from frozen out pipes like the rest of us.”
