Yes, you’re quite right. The sun may be shining but it is jolly cold – the temperature in Marlborough this morning diving to minus 13.8 degrees centigrade.
And that’s not far off the all-time record level of minus 14.1 degrees, which the Windrush weather station of Eric Gilbert noted on December 20. 1999.
“I have lived in Marlborough since 1964 and with the later prospect of being resident here for a considerable time I started my accurate collection of data in 1984 using a Stevenson screen holding the basic manually read instruments,” he told Marlborough News Online.
“An electronic, wired system installed in 1994 meant that data could be collected continuously via a computer, regardless of holidays.
“The most advanced and sophisticated wireless station was installed in 2009 allowing a slightly improved site for the equipment further from buildings and hard surfaces — in my vegetable garden.
“From there it can relay live data to an indoor monitor and again be downloaded to a computer.”
He also has an anemometer with weather vain unit, which is sited on a restrained pole some four metres above the ridge height of the building.
“With data stretching back to 1984, the interest grows as meaningful comparisons can now be made over the last 28 years and with the standard 20-year period,” Mr Gilbert, whose interest in weather data began when he was a teenager, pointed out.
“And climate change also makes the hobby topical and relevant.”
