Peter John Gibbs (born 1958) is a former BBC Weather forecaster, who appeared regularly on

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

BBC World News BBC News is an international English-language pay television channel owned by BBC Global News Ltd. – a subsidiary of BBC Studios – and operated by the BBC News division of the BBC. The network carries news bulletins, documentaries, an ...

and BBC Radio, particularly

BBC Radio Four BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at B ...

. He previously worked on the ''

BBC News at One The ''BBC News at One'' is the BBC's afternoon news programme on British television channels BBC One and the BBC News channel with British Sign Language Interpretation, broadcast weekdays at 1:00pm and produced by BBC News. The programme runs fo ...

'', ''

BBC News at Six The ''BBC News at Six'' is the BBC's evening news programme on British television channels BBC One and BBC News (British TV channel), BBC News (UK feed), broadcast weeknights at 6:00pm and produced by BBC News. It is normally broadcast for 30 ...

'', ''

BBC News at Ten ''BBC News at Ten'' (formerly known as the ''BBC Ten O'Clock News'' or the ''Ten O'Clock News'') is the BBC's flagship evening news programme on British television channels BBC One and the BBC News Channel, broadcast nightly at 10:00pm and pr ...

'' and ''

BBC Breakfast ''BBC Breakfast'' is a British television breakfast news programme, produced by BBC News and broadcast on BBC One every morning from 6:00am. It is also broadcast on the UK feed of BBC News channel on weekends. The simulcast is presented live, ...

''. He left the BBC on 9 December 2016.

Early life

Gibbs was born in

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

, and brought up in

Kendal Kendal, once Kirkby in Kendal or Kirkby Kendal, is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Westmorland and Furness, England. It lies within the River Kent's dale, from which its name is derived, just outside the boundary of t ...

, attending Kendal Grammar School. He graduated from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne in 1979 with an Honours degree in

Physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and

Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...

. He started work at the

British Antarctic Survey The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) is the United Kingdom's national polar research institute. It has a dual purpose, to conduct polar science, enabling better understanding of list of global issues, global issues, and to provide an active prese ...

in Cambridge. He worked at the British

Halley Research Station Halley Research Station is a research facility in Antarctica on the Brunt Ice Shelf operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS). The base was established in 1956 to study the Earth's atmosphere. Measurements from Halley led to the discovery ...

on the

Brunt Ice Shelf The Brunt Ice Shelf borders the Antarctic coast of Coats Land between Dawson-Lambton Glacier and Stancomb-Wills Glacier Tongue. It was named by the UK Antarctic Place-names Committee after David Brunt, British meteorologist, Physical Secreta ...

for two years from October 1979 where he made routine observations of the weather and helped to maintain the base. When he returned to the UK in May 1982 he joined the

Met Office The Met Office, until November 2000 officially the Meteorological Office, is the United Kingdom's national weather and climate service. It is an executive agency and trading fund of the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and ...

where he spent a year as a

weather forecaster A meteorologist is a scientist who studies and works in the field of meteorology aiming to understand or predict Earth's atmospheric phenomena including the weather. Those who study meteorological phenomena are meteorologists in research, while t ...

in training. He spent several years forecasting at

RAF Honington Royal Air Force Honington or more simply RAF Honington is a Royal Air Force station located south of Thetford near Ixworth in Suffolk, England. It was used as a bomber station during the Second World War and through the Cold War, hosting Han ...

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

and on the

Benbecula Benbecula ( ; or ) is an island of the Outer Hebrides in the Atlantic Ocean off the west coast of Scotland. In the 2011 census, it had a resident population of 1,283 with a sizable percentage of Roman Catholics. It is in a zone administered by ...

island in the

Outer Hebrides The Outer Hebrides ( ) or Western Isles ( , or ), sometimes known as the Long Isle or Long Island (), is an Archipelago, island chain off the west coast of mainland Scotland. It is the longest archipelago in the British Isles. The islan ...

, where he forecast for the Army missile range on

South Uist South Uist (, ; ) is the second-largest island of the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. At the 2011 census, it had a usually resident population of 1,754: a decrease of 64 since 2001. The island, in common with the rest of the Hebrides, is one of the ...

before moving to the Norwich Weather Centre in 1989.

BBC career

His

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

debut as a forecaster was with BBC Norwich's '' Look East'' in 1993, and he moved to the BBC Weather Centre to join the BBC World team in October 1997. He began forecasting for other BBC channels in November 1998 and he now

broadcasts Broadcasting is the distribution of audio audiovisual content to dispersed audiences via a electronic mass communications medium, typically one using the electromagnetic spectrum (radio waves), in a one-to-many model. Broadcasting began with ...

across all BBC channels. He often hosts

Gardeners' Question Time ''Gardeners' Question Time'' is a long running BBC Radio 4 programme in which amateur gardeners can put questions to a panel of experts. History The first programme was broadcast in the North and Northern Ireland Home Service of the BBC at ...

on Radio 4. He presented his final weather bulletin on BBC Radio 4 on Friday 9 December 2016.

Honours

He was made an honorary

Doctor of Laws A Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) is a doctoral degree in legal studies. The abbreviation LL.D. stands for ''Legum Doctor'', with the double “L” in the abbreviation referring to the early practice in the University of Cambridge to teach both canon law ...

by the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

in July 2018.

References

External links

Peter Gibbs Biography - BBC OnlineAudio interview with Peter Gibbs on the About the BBC Blog
*BBC Weather forecast from 8 January 2003 by Peter Gibbs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xyg64d-tIY {{DEFAULTSORT:Gibbs, Peter BBC weather forecasters BBC World News Living people People from Kendal Alumni of Newcastle University 1958 births Mass media people from Sunderland