#WeAreTogether: Rainfall records provide glimpse into Britain’s scientific and social history
22 April 2020
Thousands of citizen scientists have combined to rescue more than 5 million rainfall records in just over a fortnight to help improve understanding of Britain’s weather – and get a new take on its social history.
More than 15,000 volunteers used the start of the UK’s COVID-19 lockdown period as an opportunity to join the Rainfall Rescue project led by Professor Ed Hawkins at the University of Reading. This aimed to digitise rainfall measurements taken across the UK between 1820 and 1960, which previously only existed on paper documents in the Met Office archives.
The project concluded over the Easter weekend, and the digitised data will now be used by scientists and water companies to create a more accurate picture of the variability of Britain’s weather, helping show whether its water supply network can cope with future extreme wet or dry events.
Many volunteers uncovered more than just data, as they noticed fascinating details in the handwritten records and notes. The annotations plotted major historical events as well as details about the lives of those who kept the records and the sometimes peculiar challenges they faced.
"The people who make these observations, both in the past and present, play a crucial role in understanding weather and climate" - Professor Ed Hawkins, University of Reading
Professor Hawkins, Professor of Climate Science in the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology and NCAS, said: “This was by far the biggest project we have ever undertaken to rescue old weather records from the archives, and the response from the public has been incredible. We had 12,000 people sign up within the first week, and never expected to complete the whole project in just 16 days.
“The project has been popular with people looking for something useful to do while stuck at home. British people love talking about the weather, but it was great that the volunteers were interested in more than just the data, and took joy in discovering personal details indirectly captured in the records.”
Bullet holes and orders from the King
Observations made by volunteers on the Rainfall Rescue discussion forums ranged from the neatness of the handwriting on the records and the notable people who kept them, to evidence of the impact that both world wars had on society at the time.
Anecdotes included rain gauges being damaged by animals or children repeatedly throwing stones at them. Monks at Belmont Abbey, Hereford, noted in 1948 that they needed to wait for a bullet hole in the rain gauge to be fixed before continuing.
Notable authors of the reports people spotted included Sir Stafford Cripps, Labour MP and a member of Churchill's War Cabinet and Minister for Aircraft Production during the Second World War; and Sir Percival Marling, a Victoria Cross recipient during the First World War who recorded entries until his death in 1936.
One volunteer was delighted to discover the handwriting of his own father, a rainfall specialist who worked for the Met Office, on a 1950 document from Aylesbury. Another form for a rain gauge at Buckingham Palace in the 1920s recorded that the King, George V, had ordered it be moved from the garden to the yard.
The annotations also provided an unlikely source of humour: one person noted that the West Ayton, North Riding, readings ceased in September 1949 with the comment ‘too old to bother now’.
Others provided more sobering reminders of difficult times their recorders experienced: an officer’s name on one set of records changing as the Second World War broke out in 1939 with a note from his wife or daughter explaining he had been killed.
Professor Hawkins said: “The people who make these observations, both in the past and present, play a crucial role in understanding weather and climate and how we can adapt as these change in the future. It was touching to see them get as much recognition as the data itself.”
The University of Reading has a fully operational weather observation station on campus, with the data publicly available here. Daily readings have been taken manually using identical methods since 1908. The task is continuing through the COVID-19 crisis, with appropriate social distancing measures in place.
This continuous record allows scientists on campus to track record-breaking weather in Reading and monitor how conditions such as temperature and rainfall are changing over time due to the influence of climate change.