WEATHER OFFICE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 152, 30 June 1938, Page 5

WEATHER OFFICE

KELBURN ADDITIONS

PREVIOUS SITES

The additions which are being made 1 to the Meteorological .Office buildings at Kelburn have been rendered inevitable by the rapid strides made in recent years in meteorology. The development of air travel has about doubled the work, and has necessitated a larger staff, and therefore increased accommodation. The buildings at Kelburn were first erected in 1928. Some additions were made in 1936, but these proved inadequate to meet the expanding service. The new additions now in hand should be completed within the next few weeks.

The Meteorological Office has not always been at Kelburn. In fact, it has had several localities, and the varying altitude of these makes comparisons rather difficult when it comes to analysing critically various meteorological records. Weather observations between 1864 and 1869 were taken at Thorndon, on a site about 400 yards from the shore towards the Tinakori Range. The altitude above sea level of this station was 90 feet until 1868, when it was moved 30 feet lower down. For a long period of 37 years, between 1869 and 1906, all observations were made on the site now occupied by the Seddon Monument in the Sydney Street Cemetery. The height above sea level of this site was 140 feet. During the following six years/ from 1906 to 1912, the meteorological recording instruments were on Mount Cook, close to where now stands the Dominion Museum, this site having an altitude of 110 feet above sea level. A return to Thorndon was made in 1912, and from that year until 1927 the site for the instruments was ' on the Thorndon reclamation, now occupied by the railway goods shed. Here the altitude was only 10 feet above sea The Kelburn site, occupied from 1928 onwards, has an altitude of 415 feet above sea level, , and is the highest of all the meteorological station sites that have been established in Wellington. Kelburn is apparently considered likely to retain its distinction as a site for meteorological observations for a considerable time, otherwise money would not be spent on the expansion of the present buildings.