Altitude: 18 metres OD
Our school is on the southern bank of the River Dee and within the built-up area of Chester City. The school is surrounded by playing fields. There is virtually no manufacturing industry within 10 miles although we do receive some air pollution on the sea-breeze from oil refineries and power stations about 15 miles to the North East.
Observations will be made about 8 am local time each school day.
The observations come from instruments on the roof 25 metres above the ground. The automatic rain gauge is also there as well as anemometer and wind vane. The temperature and humidity sensors are 15 metres above the ground outside a north facing wall never receiving direct sunlight and in a relatively sheltered alcove. The automatic weather station feeds to a PC and to a LCD display and is from ICS. We sometimes use our Stevenson screen based instruments for comparisons. These are in a garden in another part of the campus and is used for microclimate studies with the automatic station.
In late January / early February we can usually expect mean temperatures of around 4°C with mean max of 7 and mean min of 1. Mean rainfall in Jan and Feb are about 60 mm per month with mostly SW winds. Mean sun in Jan is 48 hours with 71 hours in Feb. We can expect to have 17 rain days in Jan and 14 in Feb with 4 and 5 days of snow respectively. We should get about 10 days of frost in both months, 4 and 2 of fog and no thunder. Chester is in the rain shadow of the Clwyd Hills and so gets less rain and snow than surrounding areas.