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Pictured: The weather station at St Charles College
St Charles College, Pietermaritzburg, is pleased to announce that in partnership with the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Disciplines of Agrometeorology and Geography, the College has installed an automated weather station to measure atmospheric conditions at the school.
The long-term goal of the weather station is to measure atmospheric pollution at the school and to inform decision makers, which will hopefully lead to the improvement of air quality in Pietermaritzburg. The station provides accurate 5-minute interval data for air temperature, rainfall, humidity, evaporation, solar irradiance, wind direction and wind speed. We consider this an ideal research and teaching opportunity, with our students having the opportunity to experience the climatic conditions and then relate those experiences to the collected data. The weather information can help inform the College’s extreme weather policy and allow decisions regarding sport and the weather to be backed-up with reliable information. The hope for the future is to add further instrumentation to the weather station to measure pressure, and possibly in the long-term, to add a gas analyser to measure real-time pollution to support concerns over air quality, particularly during the winter months in the Pietermaritzburg area.
All the information is available to the public on the following website: http://agromet.ukzn.ac.za:5355/StCharles/index.html.
Furthermore, the website includes information on the weather for the previous day and provides useful information on a variety of different weather processes. Thank you to the construction team of Prof Trevor Hill, Mr Jarryd Gillham, Dr Alistair Clulow, Mr Vivek Naiken, Noah Clulow and Connor Hill. – Mr Jarryd Gillham and Prof Trevor Hill.
Photo credit: Saysha Baker
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