Fish was awarded the MBE in 2004 for services to broadcasting. He was compulsorily retired by the Civil Service and he made his final forecast on 6 October 2004 on the BBC Ten O'Clock News bulletin. In a specially extended report fellow forecaster Ian McCaskill paid tribute to Fish in stating that "Michael is the last of the true weatherman you will ever see. Michael can actually interpret the skies – he can do the weather forecast the hard way: the old way that people don't do any more, because nowadays most of the decisions are made by the computer."