In article ,
Paul Hyett writes:
On Sat, 6 Sep 2008 at 21:21:55, Martin Rowley
wrote in uk.sci.weather :

"Paul Hyett" wrote...
From the 1840's, no less. I had no idea there even *were* any
records kept for here, back then!

They cover temperature, pressure & rainfall.

Someone I know was researching in the local library, and spotted
them in an old magazine.

I'll have to check to see exactly what period they cover.

... you lucky boy! You'll have your work cut out reconciling them, but
the exercise will be fascinating. All sorts of ideas about how such
were measured then - including putting thermometers in un-heated
rooms, open to the outside

Well, the full list of observations are : Barometer, Attached
Thermometer (attached to the barometer I assume), External Thermometer,
Rain Gauge. For the first two, there are morning & evening readings, and
max/min for the ext.thermometer.

When were thermometers that logged max/min temperatures invented,
anyway?

According to Manley: "James Six, a gardener, invented the familiar
'Six's maximum and minimum' in 1782. More reliable minimum thermometers
began to come into use about 1810, but were not generally used until the
forties. Before that date most observers recorded 'fixed hour' readings
twice or thrice daily."

At this date, readings were usually taken from a thermometer on a
north-facing wall. It looks as though the Glaisher screen started to
come in in the 1840s, and the Stevenson screen after 1866, but there
would have been a long delay before many amateur observers, in
particular, started using them.

& the rain gauge location/exposure will be
problematic too.

I assume the latter *will* be located outside!

Still, it'll keep you happy for many hours this
coming wet and windy winter :-)

I'd prefer a calm & snowy one...

FYI, the 'external temperature' readings for the first several weeks of
Jan 1840 :
Max Min
01/01/1840 53 50
02/01/1840 50 40
03/01/1840 49 41
04/01/1840 48 41
05/01/1840 41 36
06/01/1840 38 28
07/01/1840 38 27
08/01/1840 32 20
09/01/1840 32 22
10/01/1840 37 33
11/01/1840 35 31
12/01/1840 39 32
13/01/1840 46 33
14/01/1840 43 38
15/01/1840 50 43
16/01/1840 49 41
17/01/1840 45 40
18/01/1840 44 32
19/01/1840 50 39
20/01/1840 52 41
21/01/1840 53 41
22/01/1840 50 44
23/01/1840 54 40

Are they truly max and min? Earlier you referred to "morning and
evening" readings.

I don't know if anyone here has access to data from another English
location during this period, to see whether they sound reasonable.

If you have data for the rest of the month as well, you could compare
the mean with the CET figure (and I think that daily CET figures are
also available by this date). You'd expect the Cheltenham values to be a
bit higher than the CET ones, but not by much.

In fact I've found that I have the daily mean CET values in a file on my
PC. I can't recall where I got them from. Try looking at Websites that
are given as references in the Wikipedia article on the CET.

1st column is the year, second is the day of the month, then there is a
column for each month of the year. The values are in tenths of a degree
Celsius. Thus on 1st Jan the mean was 9.3C (about 49F). -999 indicates a
non-existent date such as 30th February.

1840 1 93 57 10 66 111 168 146 143 184 111 90 94
1840 2 72 64 23 79 117 126 143 178 174 109 94 55
1840 3 57 65 36 47 123 117 132 175 113 80 83 15
1840 4 36 61 19 57 113 120 150 187 119 95 88 9
1840 5 7 50 17 82 121 114 134 173 115 93 85 41
1840 6 -9 49 22 67 121 156 129 196 143 46 81 23
1840 7 -41 73 18 63 127 154 134 177 140 55 84 35
1840 8 -37 38 25 50 133 156 139 168 131 60 82 49
1840 9 7 52 36 47 130 174 126 172 152 54 77 18
1840 10 -3 68 70 63 135 136 123 191 136 61 60 41
1840 11 -28 67 48 83 97 150 121 166 118 100 53 27
1840 12 -4 60 48 75 105 154 110 151 95 72 61 28
1840 13 14 52 67 77 117 140 102 143 99 70 91 8
1840 14 48 17 56 93 122 149 138 126 89 78 62 -14
1840 15 65 33 55 96 102 165 154 121 85 71 56 -35
1840 16 55 77 36 108 113 168 154 155 94 96 128 -4
1840 17 39 63 49 82 100 141 155 118 90 102 77 -26
1840 18 33 25 53 90 103 131 151 124 91 102 37 1
1840 19 82 4 38 81 81 114 148 151 82 99 33 16
1840 20 72 -2 47 114 83 133 133 175 80 64 24 27
1840 21 88 -4 22 112 68 159 139 182 120 76 57 21
1840 22 69 -12 44 141 80 137 129 151 76 78 41 -2
1840 23 101 -8 35 125 125 127 122 146 90 77 57 -26
1840 24 76 1 21 142 137 104 145 141 104 62 76 7
1840 25 59 13 19 150 109 110 141 162 79 45 21 -44
1840 26 67 16 15 146 93 136 133 158 105 57 5 -11
1840 27 40 16 29 144 110 157 132 136 121 58 -15 4
1840 28 79 29 34 148 141 148 162 157 109 63 -20 -10
1840 29 52 20 53 145 136 149 157 161 96 46 -6 -8
1840 30 20 -999 74 139 135 136 154 185 102 71 84 8
1840 31 65 -999 63 -999 147 -999 143 162 -999 76 -999 52
--
John Hall
"Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history
that man can never learn anything from history."
George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)