The Met Office (originally an abbreviation for Meteorological Office, but now the official name in itself), is the United Kingdom's national weather service, and a trading fund of the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Part of the Met Office headquarters at Exeter in Devon is the Met Office College, which handles the training for internal personnel and many forecasters from around the world. The current chief executive is John Hirst. The Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research and the National Meteorological Library and Archive are also parts of the Met Office.

The Met Office was established in 1854 as a small department within the Board of Trade under Robert FitzRoy as a service to mariners. The loss of the passenger vessel, the Royal Charter, and 459 lives off the coast of Anglesey in a violent storm in October 1859 led to the first gale warning service. In 1861 FitzRoy had established a network of 15 coastal stations from which visual gale warnings could be provided for ships at sea.