From Anglesey to Ben Nevis and Burnley, observers have been gathering invaluable data for hundreds of years
British people have always had a keen interest in the weather. Not only do they talk about it, they go out and measure it. A new paper in the journal Weather celebrates some of the UK’s most prolific and dedicated rainfall observers.
Richard Towneley started the trend in 1677, taking regular measurements of the amount of rain that fell at Towneley Hall near Burnley. By 1860, George Symons had started to coordinate the collection of rainfall data and set up the British Rainfall Organisation, gathering data from several hundred rain gauges across the nation. Many observers diligently collected observations for 50 years or more, while others, such as Clement Lindley Wragge, went to great lengths to gather their data. Wragge walked a 22km (14-mile) round trip every day between June and October of 1881 to retrieve data from the weather station at the top of the UK’s highest peak, Ben Nevis.
