Members of the Climate Broadcasters Network - Europe

Richard Chapman has a life long interest in meteorology and the passion he has for broadcast meteorology is at the heart of the thrill he gets from working in a media environment.

He worked for the UK Met Office from 1989 to 2000 and joined the BBC in March 2000. He has the unique combination of having been trained in broadcast meteorology by the Met Office and detailed knowledge gained through the BBC’s expertise in weather journalism.

Richard was appointed Editorial Manager of the BBC Weather Centre in February 2008. He works with 23 weather presenters, 9 Duty Producers and the Weather Production team to produce over 100 broadcasts a day on television, radio and online. The BBC Weather website is the UK's most popular weather content provider and regularly has over 4 million unique users a week. He plays a leading role recruiting, training, coaching and providing feedback to the on-screen talent both nationally and in the BBC's Nations and Regions.

He is the Executive Producer of the BBC News Channel's Weather show programme.

Richard is interested in making positive and constructive suggestions, encouraging others to think, and improving the process of delivering weather content across all the BBC's platforms and services.

Daniel Corbett was born in Dagenham, Essex, and spent his early years in Billericay. In 1974 he moved with his family to New York. In 1990 he obtained his BSc in Meteorology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and went on to work at Universal Weather and Aviation in New York and Houston, Texas.

At Universal Weather Dan provided aviation forecasts for corporate pilots flying around the world. He was also a marine and industrial meteorologist providing a myriad of different forecasts such as hurricane forecasts for Gulf Coast oil-rigs, temperature projections for gas companies and snow outlooks for ski areas.

Dan began his television career in 1990 at WCFT-TV in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He soon moved on to tornado alley and KWTX-TV in Waco, Texas, where his English accent was a huge hit. At KWTX Dan not only presented the weather but also operated and interpreted the station's own Doppler radar. It was while he was there in 1997 that one of the U.S.’s largest tornadoes, an F5, hit close to Waco.

In October 1997 Dan was lured back to England in order to help launch BBC News24. He gave the first weather broadcast on News24 back in November 1997. In addition to News24 Dan has also presented on BBC1, BBC2, BBC World, Radio2, Radio 4 and 5.

Dan met his wife Helen, a BBC make-up artist, while working at News24. They married at a romantic and remote little chapel beside a lake in West Cork, Ireland in May 2000. Dan and his wife moved back to the U.S. in late 2000 where he freelanced at TV stations across the southern U.S. including KRIV-TV in Houston, Texas.

In 2001 the couple moved to Tucson, Arizona. Dan worked for an ABC affiliate KGUN-TV where he was a weather presenter and feature reporter.

In 2004, Dan and Helen returned to the UK where he can now be seen presenting on many of the BBC channels including BBC1, BBC News24 and BBC World.

Michael Fish recently retired as Britain 's, and possibly the world's longest-serving TV Weather Forecaster.

On joining the Meteorological Office in November 1962, his first posting was to Gatwick Airport and, in 1965, he transferred to the Met Office headquarters in Bracknell to work on research projects. While based at the London Weather Centre, he took a sandwich course in Applied Physics at the City University. Remaining at the London Weather Centre, his broadcasting career began in 1971 with BBC Radio and, in January 1974, he became part of BBC Television's weather team.   

Michael Fish has made numerous appearances on television and radio shows ranging from light entertainment to factual programmes. He has also been involved in the training of television weathermen in various African countries. And he has written numerous articles on travel and weather and acted as a consultant for several meteorological books.

In December 1996, Michael Fish was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the City University , London and, in August 1997, he was granted the Freedom of the City of London. In June 2004, he was made an MBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours. In July 2005, he was further honoured by an award of Doctor of Science from Exeter University, and he is a patron of numerous organisations and charities. In 2004, he received the TRIC award of TV Presenter of the Year shortly before retiring in October.

Bill Giles is one of Britain 's best known weather forecasters and presented on BBC Television for over 25 years. He retired as a senior broadcaster from the Met Office in January 2000 after leading the team of Broadcast Meteorologists since 1983. Since his retirement, he continues to advice on broadcast meteorology.

Bill Giles' interest in meteorology developed at an early age whilst at school in Crediton which then led him to study meteorology at Bristol College of Science and Technology. After graduation, he joined the Meteorological Office at Exeter in January 1957 and was sent to Christmas Island to observe the immediate meteorological effects of the H-bomb tests. He was based in Germany between 1961 and 1963 as an observer with the RAF and went on to become a lecturer at Met Office's training college in Bracknell in 1968.

His broadcasting career began in 1972 when he transferred to the London Weather Centre to become part of the team forecasting for BBC Radio. He first presented on BBC Television in 1975 and continued until 1980 when promotion took him back to Bracknell where he worked in public relations. In May 1983, he returned to take charge of BBC Television's forecasting team.

October 1990 saw the publication of his book "The Weather Story" and he also worked on the BBC programme "The Weather Show", in which he provided an insight into the mysteries of forecasting and offered a glimpse behind the scenes at the difficulties of predicting the weather.

In 1995 Bill Giles was awarded an OBE in the 1995 New Year's Honours.

After achieving a first class honours degree in Geophysics and Planetary Physics from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1992, Paul joined the Met Office and held forecaster posts at The Leeds weather centre and in the International forecast unit at Met office headquarters in Bracknell before joining BBC Yorkshire and Lincolnshire as their broadcast Meteorologist in Autumn 1997.

In Autumn 2007 he left the Met Office to join the BBC and split his role between Broadcast Meteorologist and Climate correspondent, where he reports regularly on issues related to climate change. This is a brand new role and the first of its kind in the BBC. He has written 4 books on the weather, most recently Storm Force, co Written with Michael Fish, detailing Britain’s wildest weather.

"I have decided to join this network because the impact of climate change is the single biggest threat that faces the world today, and in my position of BBC climate correspondent I hope to inform our viewers and listeners in as many ways as I can about the implications of an ever warming planet. This network will allow me to share ideas with other colleagues who broadcast across Europe."

Rob McElwee became member of the BBC Television's weather team in May 1991, making his first appearance on screen on July 23.

Rob joined the Meteorological Office in March 1982 and spent most of the next eight years enjoying the Salisbury Plain, observing the weather on the Army Air Corps base of Netheravon. After realisation that life ought to change, he trained as a forecaster and went to airbases in East Anglia.

A Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, Rob lives with his wife and two sons in Buckinghamshire. His hobby is finding enough time to have a hobby, so far he has failed.

Since Michael Fish's retirement he is now surprised to find himself the longest serving national BBC TV Weatherman.

John Teather joined the BBC in 1966 working for the first four years at the Film Unit for BBC Wales in Cardiff where he was a film editor working on a variety of programmes. On his return to London, he worked as a film editor on many programmes including ‘Some Mothers do ‘ave em” and the acclaimed documentary series ‘One Pair of Eyes. He joined the BBC Presentation Department as an Assistant Producer with a wide range of duties including network directing, producing trailers and directing the weather.

In 1975, he directed Bill Giles’s first broadcast. Through the 70’s and into the 80’s John had many responsibilities. Also during this time he became more involved with weather and was responsible for the introduction of electronic weather graphics in 1985.

John Teather was responsible for leading the project for the BBC Weather Centre. He was the editor responsible for BBC Weather Broadcasts, responsible for running the BBC Weather Centre, with a team of 25 broadcast meteorologists producing over 120 broadcast every 24 hours. He was editor of the successful Weather Show series, directing and filming many of the episodes himself.

He is Honorary Secretary of the International Association of Broadcast Meteorology and has been responsible for many training workshops on behalf of the World Meteorological Organization.

Since retiring from the BBC in September 2001, he set up his own company with Bill Giles, The Weather People Ltd a company specializing in providing weather information and consultancy.

He is a Fellow and former Vice President of the Royal Meteorological Society and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. 

Francis Wilson started working as a Scientific Officer with UK Met Office in 1973, after obtaining a BSc. physics degree from Imperial College. From 1978 to 1983, he was TV Weatherman at Thames Television, subsequently working at the BBC from 1983 to 1993. Since 1993, he has been Head of Sky News Weather.

He has published six books on weather and climate and is a Chartered Meteorologist of the Royal Meteorological Society. He has attended many and various meetings of ECAM and ECAC as well as IWF, IABM, EMS and the Nation Conference of Meteorology in the UK. He has won several trophies at IWF and EMS.

His motivation is to help communicate IPPC work to the public. He first attended and made a film on the Madrid IPCC meeting in the 1990s. He has subsequently reported on TV all the main developments from Kyoto up to Copenhagen. Currently, he is about to launch a weekly TV broadcast of the actual commercial and domestic carbon emissions of the whole of the UK as part of Sky’s run up to the coverage of the Copenhagen meeting. This will be a world first.

Each week he also writes a weather column for the Sunday Times in which he often updates readers on climate change issues. You can have a look at a selection of articles here.