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
Met Office events that may affect transport infrastructure and endanger people's lives. In March 2008, the system was improved and a new stage of warning was introduced, the 'Advisory'. In September 2015 the Met Office established a "name our storms" project, the aim is to provide a single authoritative naming system for the storms that affect the UK and Ireland by asking the public to suggest names. On 10 November, the first named storm was Abigail. The main role of the Met Office is to produce forecast models by gathering information from weather satellites in space and observations on earth, then processing