In a specially extended report[3] fellow forecaster Ian McCaskill paid tribute to Fish in stating that "Michael is the last of the true weatherman you will ever see.
Michael Fish also co-authored a book with Paul Hudson and Ian McCaskill called Storm Force: Britain's Wildest Weather, published in October 2007.
A few hours before the Great Storm of 1987 broke, on 15 October 1987, Fish said during a televised weather forecast: "Earlier on today, apparently, a woman rang the BBC and said she heard there was a hurricane on the way.
But he did not mention Florida in the weather, which was made amid widespread worries about a coming storm: that morning, the Surrey Mirror had warned of "furious gales".
[7] In reaction to the controversy, the term "the Michael Fish effect" has been coined, whereby British weather forecasters are now inclined to predict "a worst-case scenario in order to avoid being caught out".
It was in fact a white lie he made up himself, as a colleague in the studio told him his mother in Wales was going to Florida and mentioned that she had heard there was a storm coming, so he thought it would be a good opening line to start the weather with.
[10] In 2012, Fish worked with a fashion company to coordinate a BASE jump from a block of flats in central London to raise awareness of climate change.
Michael Fish was widely quoted, this time telling the public that people should delay going into work if hurricane-force winds hit their area.