Shipping Forecast excluding the header line, has a limit of 350 words—except for the 0048 broadcast, where it is increased to 380 to accommodate Trafalgar's inclusion—and has a very strict format. It begins with "And now the Shipping Forecast, issued by the Met Office on behalf of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency at xxxx today." This format is followed quite strictly, although some continuity announcers read out the actual date of issue as opposed to the word "today". This is followed by gale warnings (winds of force 8 or more on the Beaufort scale), if any (e.g., "There are warnings of gales
Southerly Buster the south as the crow flies. The people of Sydney greeted the arrival of the southerly buster after a hot summer day. During the early days of the European settlement, Sydney's summer storms were accompanied by rolling red dust from the colony's brickworks. In 1879, George Herbert Gibson published a book called "Southerly Busters", where a buster wreaks havoc near Hyde Park, Sydney. Author Ruth Park makes a reference to the southerly buster in her novel Poor Man's Orange (1949): After an unbearably hot day, the old men on the balconies were sniffing the air and saying, 'Here she comes!'