Knaresborough & Scotton Weather Station

Scotton AWS is a Davis Vantage Pro electronic weather station located near the village of Scotton, North Yorkshire, which is about 1 mile from Knaresborough and 2 miles north of the centre of Harrogate (Map). Current and past weather data are automatically published on the internet every hour.

The Current data page lists data for the lastest reading, daily highs and low daily lows for various parameters. Note the "daily" is taken from midnight (00:00). Hopefully temperature, humidity, dewpoint, windchill, wind and barometer are obvious. Some of the other terms may require an explantion as to the recording methods and thus interpretaion.

Solar Radiation
Simply put, this is how bright the sun is. Technically, its a measurement of the incident solar energy recieved on a horizontal surface. A bright sunny day will show a smooth curve from zero near dawn, to a peak at solar noon, decreasing to zero at dusk. The magnitude of the peak will vary with the time of year, from a theoretical maximum of about 300W/m2 on December 21st, to 1180W/m2 on June 21st. It is however a rare day to approach these maximums, even "blue sky" days often have a degree of thin, high cirrus cloud reducing the sun's energy. A dull, heavily overcast day may bumble along at less than 50W/m2, while a patchy cloud day will have the graph up and down like a yo-yo.

Rainfall
Rainfall is recorded by a "tipping bucket" raingauge, which measures 0.01" (0.254mm) of rain for each tip. "Todays" rainfall is since midnight, "Storm" rainfall continues counting until there has been 24 hours without any rain, then it resets to zero. "Rain Rate" is the current rainfal rate, in mm per hour, with the daily high also recorded.

Graphs
Graphs shown cover the last 24 hours for the most interesting weather parameters, temperature, barometric pressure, solar radiation, rainfall, wind speed and wind direction. The keen weather observer is able to note, for example, signifcant changes in temperture, pressure trends, rainfall, and wind direction with the passing of frontal systems.