Fish said in a BBC interview that there was actually no woman caller who phoned in to the BBC regarding the storm, although over the years many have claimed to be her. It was in fact a white lie he made up himself, as a colleague in the studio (presumably a BBC employee, although Fish himself technically worked for the Met Office as a civil servant) told him his mother in Wales was going to Florida and mentioned she had heard there was a storm coming, so he thought it would be a good opening line to start the forecast with, and said "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC...".