An amateur meteorologist has been taking daily weather records in his back garden for more than six decades – and says it’s handy for knowing when to put the washing out.
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00:00My name is Jim. I've been taking weather notes since 1958 and full weather readings for much
00:13of that time, but there have been breaks. When I was 12, my mother's cousin over in
00:19Grantham had a postcard that changed colour with the moisture in the atmosphere and this
00:26intrigued me and my mother picked up on this and she bought me something similar for Christmas
00:34that year and I've been taking weather notes ever since but as I upgraded to having my
00:41own proper weather station two years later and here I am now. So since I came up to Lancashire
00:49which was in 1970, I was taking full readings and that ceased. Lovely as this garden is,
00:57it's just not quite up to that office standard with all the trees. I'm doing it now more
01:03for my own amusement. It's interesting keeping the records, noticing various trends which
01:10are happening like it is getting generally wetter over the last 50 years, not consistently
01:19we have dry years. We had one not very long ago that was drier than average but you could
01:26just see this trend coming and another overall trend and it certainly doesn't hang true
01:35is that the first frost of winter and the last frost of spring are generally getting
01:43in the first case later and in the second case earlier. So you do see these kind of
01:49trends and it does suggest to me that global warming is something we have to recognise
01:58as a fact. I don't have plans to stop immediately. I might just upgrade some of my equipment
02:05which is a bit basic. We'll see how we go but to say thankfully I'm feeling a lot better
02:10now and we'll just see how it goes as time goes by. I'm very thankful I've kept fit
02:16enough to undertake this activity. Let's just see how it goes.