Automation of Coastal Weather stations

rocket

I was just wondering do people have thoughts on the automation of the weather stations at Belmullet and Malin Head. These two historic weather stations are set for automation within the next two years. This would mean that there will be NO manned weather station on the entire west coast from Valentia to Stornaway in the Outer Hebrides. Which I believe for an Island nation is criminal. Don't get me started on the closure of the radio station at Malin Head.



16th Sept 1961 gust 99 knots 114 Mph
26th December 1998 gust 96.4 111 Mph
9th January 2008 gust 95 knots 108 Mph

Malin Head ''The Legend lives on''

Supercell

Will the data be accurate?

Paddy.1

Yes Claremorris automated as well, seems to be the western side of Ireland that this is occuring in in general.

As longfield suggests, could well be an issue with accurary.

Danno

What is wierd is the fact that we are closing/moving/automating stations in this era of "Global Warming"

If there are predictions for climate shift, surely we should be opening more stations and manning them?

rocket

I have to agree with Danno, in this day and age is it not more important to have weather/radio stations manned instead of having it all done by computer.

In my eyes I certainly would prefer if these stations remained manned. Still to have no manned weater stations on some of the most vicious coastline in the world is criminal.

lucernarian

It would be almost okay if there were more stations being opened with the cost savings, but there is no word of this. Seems like a penny-pinching exercise to me. Is the dept. of Environment still in overall charge of Met Éireann?

Mothman

To_be_confirmed wrote: »

. Is the dept. of Environment still in overall charge of Met Éireann?

Yes

or to clarify, the budget comes from the dept of Environment

Snowbie

You can open several automated stations with the cost of one manned station,im just surprised no more automated have publically come on board yet. The difference being it costs much more to man a station than it is to automate it.
But in my view,the more the manned the better or even let volunteer's data be more widely available. Fair play to Mothman for a start. At least on this forum here, were trying to collate as much info as possible for our interest (or in extreme case's our safety) but at our own expense.

I dont mean to get political about it all,there should be more push from the Environment to propose more in the way of data being sought after for our climate as a whole as it is changing more rapid nowadays.Many parts of Munster is litterally under water,this has a huge affect on agriculture(our main export) and is only going to get worse,someone has to do something scientific or mecahnic about this and wake up and smell the beans.The more data being put in a particular's face the better the chance of an outcome or we just watch our industry wash away. No we cant do anything about the weather but some should understand it more in several potentially devastating ways.

Is the dept. of Environment still in overall charge of Met Éireann?

To my knowledge,yes.

Mothman

Lest people think there are just the 15 or so weather stations in the network.

This shows the location of Climatological stations.
Somewhat out of date, 1999.
There are about 100 vof them, of which I have one, taking daily readings. Some of them have been on the go a long time, Phoenix Park opened in I think 1870s.

There are about 500 rain gauges. Many of these are monthly gauges in upland regions.

Danno

Not good enough IMHO Mothman, looking at that map and there is a VAST swathe of Ireland between Claremorris and Birr not monitored.
Nealstown, in the Slieve Bloom Mtns is the only station in Laois - which is a county c.30miles X c.30miles.
The current situation is poor and likely to become worse.

Snowbie

Yes MM i know about the climate stations around the country from that link and yes it is outdated,have you seen Kinsealy in Dublin lately,since 1999 its not the field it use to be. Readings from there would be innaccurate from a climatological viewpoint and who is to say even the remote rural parts have come into contact with some sort of artificial heat or heat islands. There also could be fewer stations?

My point still and with my above post is the need for a whole lot more manned stations,whether it be synoptics,climatological/volunteers stations just like yourself,a whole lot more funding is needed and the urge for people/goverment to take note on how weather can affect people lives both in industry and every day life.

Mothman

Danno wrote: »

Not good enough IMHO Mothman, looking at that map and there is a VAST swathe of Ireland between Claremorris and Birr not monitored.
Nealstown, in the Slieve Bloom Mtns is the only station in Laois - which is a county c.30miles X c.30miles.
The current situation is poor and likely to become worse.

I won't disagree and nealstown is probably not that representative being 219m high.

That huge gap you mention now has a climatological station at Ballygar.

One needs to bear in mind, what it takes to have a climatological station. Either an AWS in a vandal free site, or manual instruments read at least once a day (0900GMT) by a reliable observer(s) on a suitable site. These are not easy to come by and cost.

Suitable site being one that won't change during next few decades. I feel that my site is being compromised by planting of woodland within 100m in 1999.

So we can rant about it all we like here, but it won't make the slghtest bit of difference unless we act elsewhere.

We need to get onto Gormley's office, get budget increased (I suppose that means extra taxes). We need to volunteer our time, 0900GMT 365 days of year, (for manual instruments) or donate sites for AWS stations.

Met Eireann jumped at opportunity to install instruments in my place, once they felt I'd commit to daily obs.

Mothman

Snowbie wrote: »

Yes MM i know about the climate stations around the country from that link and yes it is outdated,have you seen Kinsealy in Dublin lately,since 1999 its not the field it use to be. Readings from there would be innaccurate from a climatological viewpoint and who is to say even the remote rural parts have come into contact with some sort of artificial heat or heat islands. There also could be fewer stations?

Yes probably are fewer station. Teagasc centres, (such as Kinsealy) often had climatological station, but many of these centres have been closed.

Clonroche Co. Wexford is one, and so climate station had to go. They found another site about 2km away, but one is starting from scratch regarding historical records. We've seen on boards recently examples of massive local variations.

It seems to be a real struggle to keep most existing sites as they were decades ago, through building, afforestation etc so its hard to make valid comparisons between data now and data in the past.

Mothman

Just a question re manned station, why the big need for a manned station vs an AWS?
One looses the visual report, but otherwise all other data is recorded.

Paddy.1

Mothman wrote: »

Just a question re manned station, why the big need for a manned station vs an AWS?
One looses the visual report, but otherwise all other data is recorded.

The visual report is important in recording actual events for historic and comparable purposes. I would have thought that this would have had an equal importance along with the collection of data. Certainly for scientists and others who wish to monitor so called climate change, not just with raw data, but important observations. With news that Malin Head and Belmullet are to be automated, along with Claremorris, it would seem that actual events that occur over the West and Northwest of Ireland are taking a back seat, despite the fact that 9 times out of 10, it is an area that bears the brunt of all weather types.

Snowbie

Mothman wrote: »

Just a question re manned station, why the big need for a manned station vs an AWS?
One looses the visual report, but otherwise all other data is recorded.

Ever see Terminator 2 or 3.........:D

Yes the visual reports are significant in a way,for instance i posted this the other day on the thunderstorms thread.

VALENTIA W 28 Gust 48 SLEET/THUNDER 8 79 4.4 992
as reported from met.ie site.

No way can an automated site report thunder or sleet or both together.That was a visual obs.

Imo the manned stations gives out much more info and could hearld something extreme down the road from a particular synoptic location.