John Hammond

John Hammond was born in Bosham, West Sussex in 1966.

Aged about four or five, John wrote to BBC Weather forecaster Bert Foord, asking him how he could become a weather presenter. Bert kindly wrote back with some handy hints.

In 1978 John moved from the south coast to the Cotswolds, where he lived until leaving home for university in 1984.

John studied for a Geography degree at Salford, followed by a Masters in Meteorology at Birmingham University. On completing his MSc, he joined the Met Office in 1990.

After a brief spell at Met Office HQ at Bracknell, John started forecasting in February 1991, working at regional weather centres in Nottingham, Bristol and Plymouth.

This involved a variety of forecasting work for aviation, local industry, and some local radio too.

However it wasn't until the mid-1990s when John started appearing on television.

He spent seven years as a Met Office Forecaster at ITV, joining the BBC Weather Centre in the spring of 2003.

John and his son Fred are devoted Manchester United supporters. However, unlike Fred, John is also a devoted Status Quo fan.

The pinnacle of his career so far has been playing guitar on stage with Quo at Wembley in 2000.

As well as playing guitar, John relaxes by running. He also dabbles in oil painting, especially landscapes and cloudscapes.

John says: "The great thing about the weather is that every day is a brand new day. Now some might say that just brings a brand new chance to get the forecast completely wrong again. But in fact the forecast is always right - it's the weather that sometimes goes wrong."