Hazelrigg Weather Station, up on the hill near the University’s wind turbine, has been recording daily weather observations for 50 years, with another 10 years or so of data from a site on Campus preceding that. It is a Met Office climatological station, and the data we record contributes to the long-term climate record for the UK, as well as helping to verify weather forecasts and climate models.

Where it all happens every morning at 0900, in pretty much exactly the same way as it has since 1976, with everything standardised across all the Met Office’s 150 or so climatological stations throughout the UK.

Monday 1st December 2025. The start of meteorological ‘winter’, heralded by typical west coast warmth, wind and wetness. I had already decided before even getting out of bed that it was going to be a cycle-to-work-in-full-waterproofs-and-wellies day...with the lights on too, as it was still a depressingly dark setting off at 8.15am, thanks to heavy cloud cover, with thick lashing drizzle and rain creating very poor visibility. At least I already had a pretty good idea of what the Met Office “present weather code” would be when recording the data at Hazelrigg. This needs to be done at the same time every morning, 365 days a year. For that reason, we rely on a great group of students and staff to help cover days when I’m not there (if anyone reading this would like to help, please do get in touch!). I was due to be training one of them today, and half hoping they wouldn’t turn up, on the grounds that a) I could get it over and done with a lot quicker by myself; b) if they did turn up they may never come back again; and c) I might be in breach of the European Convention on Human Rights for putting them through it.

“Turf wall” rain gauge. It’s essentially a 5-inch funnel with a sharp rim and bottle underneath – the wall just protects it from the wind to ensure a more accurate measure of rainfall. The old methods go back decades, and in many cases more, so they provide a consistent historical record that can be compared with extensive modern automated measurements.

What the Met Office doesn’t have a “present weather code” for is someone in a 4x4 coming at me in the other direction, refusing to slow down and carrying on through the 20 cm of flood water I was cycling through, thereby hitting me with a solid, alarmingly powerful wall of muddy water complete with bits of soil and plant matter in eyes and mouth. If they did, it would be a higher code that would supersede the 59 for “moderate or heavy drizzle with rain”. It’s always the highest code that applies...

Despite being temporarily blinded and almost knocked off, I managed to stay upright and arrive at work in time for 8.30am or so. Only the fiddly lock on the new fortress-like gates to deal with now. Despite the climatologically mild temperatures, my “amorphous thumb” (as one of my friends referred to it the other week) was causing some pain, especially after fiddling with the wet lock. Nothing to do with work, just a result of frostbite acquired climbing Scottish ice in the dark with spindrift pouring down my neck, big holes in my mitts and a wind chill of -22 or so. Still, it’s a welcome reminder of times much more fun than this morning…

Record-breaking daily rainfall of 73 mm in November 2017. (The 36-hour total for the whole duration of that one event was 95 mm, equating to about 3.5 million tonnes of water falling on the catchment of the river Conder).

Luckily, Isabel turned out to be a pretty hardy soul, and seemed to see the funny side of having to be trained to do all the measurements regardless of the conditions. I explained as much as I could inside the building for both our sakes...then once more out into the "sub-optimal" atmospheric conditions. It doesn’t take too long to do the main measurements outside (thankfully), though the card on the sunshine recorder was a little soggy and took some careful peeling off. I tried to provide reassurance that this was definitely the worst morning so far this term, and it’s not always like this - though I’m not sure that this remained very convincing after the next session coincided with “Storm Bram”.

The Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder in action on a better day. It just sits there focusing the sun’s rays onto the card at the back as the planet spins around, burning a line in the card as it goes, whenever the sun is out. Hazelrigg is one of 12 Met Office ‘designated sunshine sites’ across the U.K., as we have such a long continuous record of using it. They’ve been around since the 1880s (this one seems to have a date of 1954) so the historical data can be compared with modern-day electronic sensors, as well as scanned in to provide much more data (sunshine intensity for example) much more accurately than someone just measuring the sunshine duration with a ruler. The cards are sent off to the Met Office archives at the end of each month by post, after they previously collected 4 sacks full covering the first 50 years to 2016.

Having done the main Met Office measurements, we then had to walk down the hill to take a few more temperature readings in the “new enclosure” (it’s been there for over 13 years, but that’s all relative at Hazelrigg) via the “Bridge of Death”. There was no bridge keeper asking us five questions - “three questions” - and in any case I don’t know what the flight velocity of an unladen swallow is, be it African or European. It’s just a dodgy collapsing footbridge that needs replacing. I have photographic evidence of the wounds to my arm after slipping on it in September, should that be needed to prompt action…

Electronic sunshine sensor in the ‘New Enclosure’. This one can tell us the amount of both direct (what we would think of as “sunshine”) and diffuse (scattered by clouds etc) solar radiation reaching the surface. It does this using 7 separate sensors and a shading structure, arranged in such a way that whatever the sun’s position in the sky, at least one sensor will always be completely shaded, and one completely unshaded. However, they’ve not been around since the 1880s, so having the two side by side is valuable in terms of placing modern measurements in the context of the long-term historic data.

Stevenson Screen – where the thermometers are housed - the standard and most accurate way of measuring the ambient air temperatures. It’s sited over open grass, away from heat sources (e.g. buildings, tarmac); being white prevents it from heating up in the sun, and the ventilated sides allow a free flow of air from the surroundings.

Next, back inside to enter all the data in hard copies and spreadsheets - not easy when you’re both dripping water everywhere. After that, I still needed to check through the data from the weekend, finding a few numbers which would have defied most currently understood laws of physics. They needed correcting by going back outside to scroll through the Met Office temperature logger while getting drenched again. On my return, I did allow myself the luxury of turning up the heating a couple of degrees from its usual minimum setting of 18 °C, just to try and dry things out a bit.

Met Office temperature logger displaying the record maximum temperature at Hazelrigg (19th July 2022). That certainly dried things out a bit - combined with the strength of the wind and extraordinarily low relative humidity it felt like stepping out into a furnace. But far preferable to the oppressive humidity and 29 °C of the day before.

I still had to deal with all the usual data management that’s needed at the end of each calendar month. First up, sending the (corrected) numbers from the last three days to the Met Office, so they had the complete climate data for November as soon as possible. Next, downloading our automated measurements to back up and share those as monthly files (everything we measure manually is replicated by automatic weather stations recording data every 10 minutes). Then there are files with monthly temperature, rainfall, and sunshine stats to update and share; as well as one enormous file that contains all the manual data recorded at 9am each morning since 1966. Plus, processing some solar radiation data for which we have a contract to send to a solar panel company at the end of each month.

Daily measurements are sent to the Met Office using their “Weather Observations Website".

Lots of people use this data, from Students and Researchers to Teaching staff, Facilities and people up the road arguing with their insurance company (that also includes Facilities, every time the roof blows off Slaidburn House for example). So it all needs keeping on top of, including the physical maintenance of all the instruments - anything from regularly replacing wicks on the ‘wet bulb’ thermometers, cleaning out blocked automatic rain gauges (sometimes the only way to remove the residues of bird droppings, or attempts at nesting, is to turn the funnel upside down, fill it with water, take a deep gulp and forcefully expel it through the tube), or strimming grass in the summer. And evicting ducks (and sometimes toads...or dead rats) from the evaporation pan. Best not mention, for Health and Safety reasons, how a wind vane was removed from 10 metres up to be repaired last summer...

With the two automatic weather stations to deal with as well, there’s a lot of data to check, but it’s very useful to have a real-time record as well as just the daily figures. This example shows by just how much previous temperature records were exceeded in the July 2022 heatwave, something that would also be apparent in the Met Office daily data. However, what would not be apparent is the unprecedented overnight minimum of 25°C on the night of 18^th/19^th – the 24-hour minimum (0900-0900) that’s sent to the Met Office actually occurred at 9 a.m. on 18^th, not overnight. Graphic – thanks to Paul Young.

Thankfully, there were no last-minute requests for field kit from LEC today - the other part of my job is dishing that out for taught fieldwork, dissertation students, etc. (the "etc" being if I’m feeling in a charitable mood) - so I was at least spared one rewetting-redrying cycle. Riding home in the dark (and rain of course), I tried to keep in mind the better days recently, with clear crisp autumn sunshine, and views of the Cumbrian fells covered in snow, plus all the way out to the Isle of Man and down to Snowdonia...of course, I’d rather have been on the snow-covered fells than looking at them from here, but it’s not all bad this job! However, my front light, after some issues during the previous deluge last week, was now definitely dead. I somehow survived the ride back by diving into the hedge occasionally. At least, much as I like to be, this day I wasn’t distracted by questions regarding mangel-wurzels, which happens more often than you might think...

Mangold hurling competition held on Campus, October 2005...

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