How the Westcountry brings you the weather

The weather - and how we report it - has come a long way since the first forecast published in a newspaper 150 years ago.

Computers and mathematical modelling mean we can get information at the touch of a button now - a far cry from even as little as 60 years ago when forecasts were still drawn by hand.

Many of those forecasts are created by a team in the West Country, at the worldwide headquarters of the Met Office in Exeter.

The team there devise the forecasts we see on our screens, as well as for worldwide shipping and aviation. They even look at the weather in space.

It all runs off a massive supercomputer installed this year and costing £97 million.

The Met Office says four day forecasts are as accurate now as one day forecasts were a few years ago, but that doesn't mean they get it right every time.

In 2009 its long range forecasts predicted a warm summer and a heatwave did follow in June. But in July things turned nasty with flooding, heavy rain and a soggy harvest for many farmers.

The idea of seeing into the future might seem impossible, but the forecasters could argue they come pretty close.