Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used for
and who they belong to.

Thanks

On Fri, 25 Jul 2003 07:04:55 +0000 (UTC), "Shirtie"
wrote:

Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used for
and who they belong to.

They seem to be on all motorways and trunk routes, along with other
strange roadside furniture, often with a solar panel on a pole.

Steve Warren, who is a regular here, also has a website partly devoted
to roadside objects (speed cameras) - I haven't read all of his
excellent site:

http://www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk

but there may be some information there about them, bearing in mind
his dual interests.

Steve may also be able to give you a direct answer.

JPG


Thanks

Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather
stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air
quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used
for
and who they belong to.

Thanks

If the poles are dark blue, then they are not weather stations but traffic
speed sensors owned by Trafficmaster. For more information, see
http://www.trafficmaster.co.uk/

Regards

Howard Neil

In message , Paul Crabtree
writes

I understood these instruments to belong to the County Council to record the
weather details, there will be probes etc built into the road at the same
point to measure the road surface temp which helps them assist when to salt
the road etc - all the data is fed to a central computer at each county
council office to give them live readings - just a shame the info isn't
available for all



I've noticed these instruments in a wide variety of odd locations, not
just alongside motorways...most recently on a single track road between
Tarbert and Grosebay on the Isle of Harris! Then again I guess the
Western Isles council will be particularly interested in the weather.

Conventional climatalogical stations are not as easy to spot. The only
ones that I have come across so far include the highly visible Swanage
station, one on the Isle of Skye, near Broadford I think and one on the
campus of University College Northampton. Rainfall stations, although
clearly marked on some OS maps, appear to be disappearing fast or are
highly camouflaged. I guess the ever present threat of vandalism places
these sites in discrete locations.

--

Mike Lewis

Hi Shirtie ,

The roadside stations are for highway maintenance, in respect of checking
for icy conditions, as well for wind speed checks on important routes. The
stations accompany sensors in the road tarmac, measuring road surface
temperatures, salt levels and moisture so that councils's highway department
know whether to add salt on to the roads. They also have knowledge of likely
conditions along the road having done "thermal mapping" surveys previously,
so they should know of any frost pockets in the area. The aim is to use just
enough road salt as is required, and to have an idea whether a road might
need re-salting after rain etc.

Most counties have them in the UK. A lot of this work was pioneered by Dr.
John Thornes of Birmingham University.

Dorian


"Shirtie" wrote in message
...
Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather
stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air
quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used
for
and who they belong to.

Thanks

Hi all,
Being someone who writes a fair number of forecasts for road clients
during the winter, I feel I can answer this query! As people have
pointed out, these are roadside weather stations which measure various
met elements like air temperature, dew point, wind, etc, as well as
the road surface temperature, and road surface state (i.e. wet, dry,
hoar frost, etc). This data is then fed back either to a central
bureaux (if they're Vaisala ones) or to a stand-alone PC (Findlay
Irvine ones). This data is then displayed on software to see how road
temperatures, etc are behaving, and to monitor them against forecast
road surface temperatures (which is where forecasters come in!).

Hope this helps.

cheers,

Paul K.

Any chance some of this data being made available on the net

Paul


"Dorian Speakman" wrote in message
...
Hi Shirtie ,

The roadside stations are for highway maintenance, in respect of checking
for icy conditions, as well for wind speed checks on important routes.
The
stations accompany sensors in the road tarmac, measuring road surface
temperatures, salt levels and moisture so that councils's highway
department
know whether to add salt on to the roads. They also have knowledge of
likely
conditions along the road having done "thermal mapping" surveys
previously,
so they should know of any frost pockets in the area. The aim is to use
just
enough road salt as is required, and to have an idea whether a road might
need re-salting after rain etc.

Most counties have them in the UK. A lot of this work was pioneered by Dr.
John Thornes of Birmingham University.

Dorian


"Shirtie" wrote in message
...
Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather
stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and
have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind
strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air
quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used
for
and who they belong to.

Thanks

There is one on the A34 near Newbury next to a layby...

On a windless calm day you can watch the anemometer spin like mad every time
a lorry races by!

GREAT!


Barry Kirley


"Paul Crabtree" (remove spam for valid
e-mail) wrote in message ...
Any chance some of this data being made available on the net

Paul


"Dorian Speakman" wrote in message
...
Hi Shirtie ,

The roadside stations are for highway maintenance, in respect of
checking
for icy conditions, as well for wind speed checks on important routes.
The
stations accompany sensors in the road tarmac, measuring road surface
temperatures, salt levels and moisture so that councils's highway
department
know whether to add salt on to the roads. They also have knowledge of
likely
conditions along the road having done "thermal mapping" surveys
previously,
so they should know of any frost pockets in the area. The aim is to use
just
enough road salt as is required, and to have an idea whether a road
might
need re-salting after rain etc.

Most counties have them in the UK. A lot of this work was pioneered by
Dr.
John Thornes of Birmingham University.

Dorian


"Shirtie" wrote in
message
...
Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather
stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and
have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind
strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air
quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road
to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are
used
for
and who they belong to.

Thanks