Shipping Forecast

The ** Forecast** is a weather forecast covering the sea around the United Kingdom and Ireland. It has been broadcast four times a day on BBC Radio 4 since the 1920s.
The Met Office, the UK meteorological centre, produces it for the  Coastguard Agency.  The forecast talks about lots of places, starting with  "Viking" in the northeast and going  clockwise around the British coastline until it reaches "Southeast Iceland" in the northwest. Sometimes the names are changed to keep them the same as in other countries. It is one of the first items on Radio 4 each day, and has been referenced in many poems and songs, including a poem by Seamus Heaney and a song by the British band, Blur (*This is a Low*).

## Protocol 
There is a  set of rules (a ) on how the forecast is written, and it has a limit of 370 words. It is always said in the same way and is around 9 minutes long. The language of the forecast is hard to understand unless the listener understands how the rules work. For example:  People listening to the forecast who know the protocol can understand it as "In the English Channel, there are strong winds, followed by a stronger wind in less than twelve hours time with some light rain, but good visibility". The numbers refer to the Beaufort Scale of wind strength. *Imminent* means within 6 hours, *soon* between 6 and 12, and *later* meaning after 12 hours. There are lots of other jargon used in the Shipping Forecast.

## *Sailing By* 
An instrumental piece of music, *Sailing By*, is played before the 00:45 broadcast of the Shipping Forecast. It acts as a  between the news bulletin and the Shipping Forecast, in order to make the Shipping Forecast play at exactly the same time each day. This gives the Radio 4 controllers  if the programming of Radio 4 is running late. There was an  when it was temporarily taken off air for two years in 1993. *Sailing By* was written by Ronald Binge, a light music composer.

## Methods 
The Shipping Forecast is broadcast in many different ways, most ly, on the radio. BBC Radio 4, the radio station that the Forecast is broadcast from three times a day, can be listened to as far away as Denmark, or can be listened to anywhere in the world via the BBC's website. 
### Navtex 
An updated Shipping Forecast is broadcast six times a day from three Navtex transmitters placed  around the coast of the United Kingdom, giving information on the areas near to the transmitter. The three transmitters are called Cullercoats, Niton and Portpatrick, after the places they are at. Navtex is a type of radio communication that sends a message to a  that picks it up and changes it into text, like to a mobiles' text message. The Navtex messages can be received up to 270 miles offshore. Navtex is an acronym for NAVigational TEXt messages. Major areas of general Navtex coverage include the Mediterranean Sea, the North Sea, Japan and the coasts of North America. Navtex is one of the more common ways of receiving the Shipping Forecast when off-shore.

### Coastguard 
The Maritime Coastguard Agency sends messages every three hours from their sixteen stations that are located by the coast. They also send important navigational notices 

## References 
## Other websites 
Read the Shipping Forecast] 
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/coast_and_sea/shipping_forecast