19.00 for 19.30 Joint Meeting with the Satellite Group - Speaker: John Hammond, Senior BBC Weatherman

JOHN HAMMOND

John Hammond was born in Bosham, West Sussex in 1966.

When he was about 4 or 5 years old he wrote to BBC Weatherman Bert Foord, asking him how he could become a Weatherman.  Bert kindly wrote back with some handy hints.

In 1978 John moved from the south coast to the Cotswolds, where he lived until leaving home for University in 1984.  He studied for a Geography degree at Salford University, followed by a Masters in Meteorology at Birmingham University.  On completing his MSc, he joined the Met Office in 1990.

After a brief spell at Met Office HQ at Bracknell, John started forecasting in February 1991, working at regional Weather Centres in Nottingham, Bristol and Plymouth.  This involved a variety of forecasting work for aviation, local industry, and some local radio too.  However it wasn't until the mid-1990s when John started TV Weather Presenting.

He spent around 7 years as a Met Office Forecaster at ITV, joining the BBC Weather Centre in the spring of 2003.

John and his son Fred are devoted Manchester United supporters.  However unlike Fred, John is also a devoted Status Quo fan.  The pinnacle of his career so far has been playing guitar on stage with Quo at Wembley in 2000.

As well as playing the guitar, John relaxes by running. He also dabbles in oil painting, especially landscapes and cloudscapes.

John says: "The great thing about the weather is that every day is a brand new day.  Now some might say that just brings a brand new chance to get the forecast completely wrong again.  But in fact the forecast is always right - it's the weather that sometimes goes wrong".