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, so the ground tends to retain moisture.

RECORDING INSTRUMENTS:

Automatic Weather Station (AWS)
LaCrosse WS2300 (Skyview Systems www.skyview.co.uk )

Remote sensors monitor:
outdoor temperature, outdoor relative humidity, dew point
rainfall (tipping bucket)
wind speed/direction, wind chill

Base Station monitors:
indoor temperature, indoor humidity
atmospheric pressure (absolute)
time from the DCF77 radio clock signal from Frankfurt, Germany.

Data is automatically logged (usually hourly)

Manual Observations at 0900

soil temperatures at 10cm and 20cm depth
garden pond temperature (just for interest)

5" raingauge
cloud cover
visibility
weather code

and a weather diary is kept to record any other significant events (snow depth, thunder etc)

Data Processing

Hourly AWS data is initially downloaded to a PC (using HeavyWeather software), and is periodically imported into my own customised 'AWS database' (Microsoft Access) and the Manual Observations keyed in. These detailed hourly records are stored for future reference.

Daily Records are extracted and later imported into my own customised 'Integrated Database' (Microsoft Access) which holds records from 1956 to the present, to enable further processing to be performed, such as obtaining monthly and annual summaries, comparing recent weather with that of previous years, and identifying longer term trends.