Meteorological readings

The University of Reading has a large and quite well respected Meteorological department (the Climate Stripes to show global warming were developed by one of our lecturers https://showyourstripes.info), and this morning our library Staff Development Hour session was a visit to the Atmospheric Observatory on campus. It’s a set of instruments where they’ve been taking daily measurements of temperature, rainfall, wind and sunshine since the 1960s, and before that at our original campus elsewhere in Reading since 1908. That’s quite a lot of valuable data! One of the lecturers gave us a tour of the instruments, what they are for and how they work, which was very interesting. There’s also a laser that measures the height of the clouds, but as it’s been clear blue sky today, it’s not catching much today! The photo shows a set of thermometers that go into the ground to various depths which are useful for understanding soil temperatures in relation to ground temperature, very handy if you grow crops.

I left work early this afternoon to make up for my late night on Monday, and had arranged to meet Paul for coffee and cake at a local farm shop. What a lovely end to the week, sitting outside in the sun with the swallows swooping around. And the biggest piece of lemon drizzle cake that you ever did see - I’ve brought home half for tomorrow!