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Send in the clouds – Aussie weatherman helps UK flagship forecast weather
16 July 2025
Making the final forecasts of his three-month stint aboard the UK’s flagship is Australian weatherman Liam Humphrey who’s completing an exchange with the Royal Navy.
The Royal Australian Navy officer has been assigned to aircraft carrier HMS Prince of Wales since she sailed from Portsmouth in late April on an exchange programme with our Commonwealth allies.
He’ll end his time aboard the Portsmouth-based warship on home turf, as the aircraft carrier leads the Royal Navy’s involvement in the largest military exercise ever staged in Australia, Talisman Sabre (19 nations, 35,000 personnel), spread across much of the Northern Territory and Queensland.
The carrier strike group’s F-35 jets and suite of helicopters will be heavily engaged throughout the three-week workout – demanding forecasts with pinpoint accuracy.
In his native navy, Liam is a maritime geospatial officer, known as a meteorological and oceanographic officer in the Royal Navy, but the job is pretty similar:
Weather forecasting for all the ships and aviation assets: F-35 stealth fighters, Merlin and Wildcat helicopters, plus helicopters belonging to allied vessels assigned to the carrier group such as HMNZS Te Kaha’s Sea Sprite, and the various drones of 700X Naval Air Squadron.
And in addition Liam advises the command team on the tactical exploitation of the ocean and atmosphere to enable all spheres of warfare, such as HMS Richmond leading the hunt for hostile submarines potentially taking a look at the carrier force.
It is a really cool full circle moment for me, both serving on an aircraft carrier and sailing into Darwin on one.
Liam joined the carrier in April, shortly before the ship departed Portsmouth, and steps off in Darwin when UK involvement in Talisman Sabre ends.
At present the RAN doesn’t operate any aircraft carriers – her largest ships are helicopter assault ships roughly half the size of HMS Prince of Wales – so the experience has been, he says, “eye-opening”.
He added: “My previous sea time has been on frigates and patrol boats, so the scale of the carrier has been a new thing to get used to.
“It’s also been a great experience operating in parts of the world where the Royal Australian Navy doesn’t often go, such as the UK and the Mediterranean, and being involved in Royal Navy events such as the Operation Corporate mess dinner at sea.”
He’s particularly enjoyed the opportunity to serve aboard the UK flagship on exercises in his home waters – for strong family reasons.
“It is a really cool full circle moment for me, both serving on an aircraft carrier and sailing into Darwin on one,” Liam says.
“My grandpa served in Australia’s last aircraft carrier, HMAS Melbourne from 1965-67 – operating in Vietnam and Malaysia – and again in 1973-1976.
“He sailed into Darwin in Melbourne as part of the Royal Australian Navy’s disaster relief assistance after Cyclone Tracy in December 1974.”