Past weather at Moor House presented at Royal Geographical Society event in London

John’s talk on ‘Perceptions of Historic “Bad Winters” in the North Pennines’ was given at a workshop on 27^th August called ‘Talking Weather’.

In his presentation, John brought together accounts of the early years of Moor House Field Station with the meteorological records of that time. He drew upon recollections from many of the people who have worked at Moor House, which he had previously compiled in ‘Moor House Memories – a Social History of a Nature Reserve’. He also presented data on the number of snow days each winter at Moor House, provided by the current ECN Site Manager, Rob Rose.

John’s talk contributed to the purpose of the ‘Talking Weather’ workshop, which was to bring together individuals with an interest in weather study and cultural histories of the weather, to explore the ways in which people engage with and ascribe meanings to the weather and make sense of it. Specifically the event provided a forum to discuss different methodologies and approaches that can be used to investigate and capture popular understanding of weather, weather memories and experiences

Other speakers included ex-BBC weatherman John Kettley, on weather and the media, and Frank Oldfield (University of Liverpool), who spoke about the work of Meteorologist Gordon Manley. Manley initiated weather recording at Moor House in 1931 and the recording is continued today by ECN staff based at CEH Lancaster. This is now the UK's longest upland instrumental record (see Holden and Rose 2011).

Further information

• Adamson, J.K. (2009). Moor House Memories – a Social History of a Nature Reserve (unpublished)
• Holden, J. and Rose, R. (2011), Temperature and surface lapse rate change: a study of the UK's longest upland instrumental record. Int. J. Climatol., 31: 907–919. doi: 10.1002/joc.2136
• Royal Geographical Society
• ECN Moor House-Upper Teesdale
• Centre for Ecology & Hydrology