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Meeting report 150th anniversary of the founding of the British Rainfall Organization

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A beautifully sunny spring day failed to deter a good turnout to this meeting on Saturday, 17th April. The first four main presentations were published in the May 2010 issue of Weather. After words of welcome from the Society President, Prof. Julia Slingo, the meeting started with a talk on the history of the British Rainfall Organization (BRO) from David Pedgley. George Symons started collecting rainfall records in the late 1850s. This led to the publication of a four-page leaflet English Rainfall covering the rainfall of 1860 (the forerunner of the annual British Rainfall volumes), a photocopy of which was given to those attending the meeting.

David Pedgley traced the rise in workload as the number of contributors increased – reaching over 2000 in just 20 years. Malcolm Walker provided a biographical portrait of George Symons. After explaining how Symons’s Meteorological Magazine had become the Met Office publication Met Mag, his regret at the ending of the publica-tion was shared by several in the audience. Ian Strangeways then broadened the sub-ject-matter with a review of the history of the rain gauge. One of the main tasks for the BRO was to establish the standards for rainfall measurement which went on to be adopted in much of the world.

Stephen Burt gave an evaluation of British Rainfall, noting that many rainfall records would have been lost to history had they not been published here. No original copies of the 1860 volume English Rainfall were known to exist (the handout given out on the day being from a facsimile copy published in 1884). Harvey Rodda described how the annual list of heavy daily rainfalls published each year in British Rainfall had been digi-tised and how this forms a valuable resource for the insurance industry (an account was published in Weather, March 2009).

Tim Allott (Met Office) brought us up-to-date with a review of the present-day rain-fall observing network. This currently comprises 3214 gauges, 30% of which are automated and 66% of which are run by the Environment Agency. Even so, there are still as many as 1800 voluntary observers. 59 rainfall stations have been running for at least a century but the network has con-tracted in recent decades. It was asked if more recent rainfall data could be published on the Met Office website as a substitute for the annual volumes of Rainfall, the successor to British Rainfall, which was published by the Met Office until the volume for 1993.

Malcolm Kitchen (Met Office) provided food for thought in his consideration of the

value of rainfall records in the future. He con-trasted the recent decreased resolution of rain-gauge data with the increased resolu-tion of Numerical Weather Prediction, and the extent to which the latter should act as a driver for the former. Is the observation capability sufficient to allow detailed analy-ses of small-scale events such as local storms? He also considered whether the attenuation of mobile phone signals by rain could be used as a means of remote sensing rainfall.

A feature of the meeting that made it a success was the range of historical exhibits on display: these included the two Albert medals awarded to Symons, originals of the Society’s Symons medals and a fine testimo-nial book awarded to Symons by the Society in 1879. The meeting ended with the story of how Symons’s grave was being restored following an initiative from Stephen Burt and Philip Eden. All present were invited to a commemorative ceremony on St Swithin’s Day, 15 July.

Correspondence to: Julian Mayes,West Molesey, Surrey

julian.mayes@tiscali.co.uk

© Royal Meteorological Society, 2010

DOI: 10.1002/wea.624

1Susan Conway is a British artist whose work involves a liaison between fine art and textiles. She has travelled widely in southeast Asia and lived in Sabah, Malaysia and Thailand and later in the USA. She has experienced a range of technical, stylistic and cultural influences which have led to a particularly rich and experimental approach to art. She gained a BA in Fine Art, an MA in textile art and a PhD. She has exhibited her paintings in the USA, Thailand and the UK. She has written several books on the arts and crafts of inland southeast Asia, including The Shan: Culture Arts and Crafts and Silken Threads Lacquer Thrones, both published by River Books, Bangkok.

Painting the weather in the TropicsSusan Conway1

London

I have been told that meteorologists are interested in all ways of looking at the weather, and this article is about a particular perspective on the subject.

My career began in Sabah, Malaysia, where I was teaching in a high school. I painted in an atmosphere of brilliant tropi-cal light. Sabah, referred to as The land below the wind (Davies, 2010), lies just north of the Equator. It rains most days, producing a wonderful mix of early morning light, gathering monsoon clouds, heavy rain, and then brilliant sunshine. As the light fades and the sun sets, streaks of brilliant red flash across the sky. It is heady stuff. I felt satu-rated by heat and light. I sketched and painted, taught in school, and in my spare time worked for the curator of the local Sabah museum, producing drawings of wild life and local artefacts.

I returned to England and, on the strength of my portfolio, was offered a place at art school. We were taught life drawing and landscape and were allowed to experiment. I spent time in the textile department where I learnt how to work with dyes, and to

weave. It was an exciting experience but when I graduated I felt my work looked dis-jointed, as if I couldn’t decide whether I was a painter or a textile artist. Then something totally fantastic happened. David Hockney gave a lecture which, although I was not a student in London, I managed to attend. With great wit and charm he demonstrated how he achieved his swimming pool paintings. He showed work by Helen Frankenthaler, an American artist who used dyes and paints, allowing them to stain can-vas and paper in beautiful flowing channels and to bleed into each other, building layer upon layer of colour. Hockney said he was inspired by her free style. He incorporated her ideas into the way he interpreted swim-ming pools with the floating patterns formed on chlorinated water, constricted in painted concrete and reflecting the Californian light. It was a revelation. I thought his way of seeing could be reinterpreted in