Forties

Sea area of the Met Office Shipping Forecast. Covers the central North Sea, northeast of the UK mainland.

Named for the Long Forties sandbank (soundings around 40 fathoms), Forties lies in the central North Sea. Exposed to frequent autumn and winter westerly gales, it experiences rough seas with swells up to 6 m. The Forties oil field (discovered 1970) sits here, and its operations have sometimes been delayed for weeks by severe storms.