At noon on Monday 4 February listeners to the Shipping Forecast broadcast by the BBC will no longer hear the sea area Finisterre instead their ears will tune into the new name Fitzroy.

The new area has come about because the UK traditionally crammed more into the area Finisterre than that recognised by Spain, whose north-western corner gives its name to the weather patch.

For 53 years this didn’t seem to matter, but after a review by the World Meteorological Organisations, it did, so now the new area has been named after Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy, founder of the UK Met Office, as reported in Yachting Monthly On Watch January 2002.