Weather Station Details

Halesowen, West Midlands, UK

Latitude 52 deg 27_min N Longitude 2 deg 4 min W
National Grid Reference: SO 954 831

Altitude of station: 150 metres above Mean Sea Level
Exposure of station: average

Halesowen
lies 13km to the west of Birmingham city centre in the West Midlands of England. The weather station lies within a residential area 1km west of, and higher than, Halesowen town.
This is in quite a hilly area on the local scale, with many minor hills and dips.
More significant ranges of hills lie a few km to the N and E, stretching from Dudley through Rowley Regis to Quinton, and to the SW and S the 300m high Clent, Walton Hill and Romsley.
The area is rather more exposed to the W and NW through the 'Cheshire gap', the only direction without significant hills in the way, so weather from that direction arrives here relatively unhindered.

Contour map of area around Halesowen

dark brown >1000ft (305m).
mid brown >800ft (244m)
mid grey >600ft (183m)
green >400ft (122m)
yellow >200ft (61m)
N.B. spot heights are in feet

The Great Divide
The 'Great Divide' is the strip of high ground on the right side of the map above (shown in grey) which runs north to south. Rain falling to the west of the 'Great Divide' ends up eventually in the Bristol Channel to the west of the UK, while rain falling to the east of the 'Great Divide' ends up in the North Sea to the east of the UK.

If you know this area, the Divide follows Long Lane/ Narrow Lane at the top of Mucklow Hill.

Rainwater from Halesowen town centre and from my own location, being just to the west of the 'Great Divide', drains into the Upper Stour valley, the R. Stour and its tributaries into the R. Severn at Stourport, finally into the sea through the Bristol Channel.

Rainwater from the higher eastern part of Halesowen and Quinton is to the east of the 'Great Divide' so drains to the east, finally arriving in the North Sea..

The soil here is mostly heavy clay, and the ground tends to retain moisture.

RECORDING INSTRUMENTS:

Automatic Weather Station (AWS)
Davis Vantage Pro 2
LaCrosse WS2300 (backup)

Outdoor Remote sensors monitor:
temperature, relative humidity, rainfall (tipping bucket), wind speed/direction,
solar radiation, UV, dew point, wind chill etc

Indoor Base Station monitors:
indoor temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure etc

Data is automatically logged (at least hourly)

Manual Observations at 0900
5" raingauge, cloud cover, visibility, weather diary to record significant events

Data Processing
Hourly AWS data is downloaded to a PC and periodically imported into my own
'AWS database' (which uses Microsoft Access) and Manual Observations keyed in.

Daily Records are then extracted and imported into my own customised 'Integrated Database' (also using Microsoft Access) which holds Halesowen records from 1956 to the present.
Further processing is then performed, e.g. monthly and annual summaries, comparing recent weather with that of previous years, and identifying longer term trends.