The original data¶
“For twenty years between 1883 and 1904, three intrepid meteorologists lived at the top of Ben Nevis – the highest mountain in the UK – experiencing some of the worst weather the country has to offer.
Every hour, day and night, winter and summer, and whatever the weather, one of them would step outside and check the meteorological instruments, diligently recording the observations.”
They printed their observations in four reports:
- Alexander Buchan, ‘Meteorology of Ben Nevis’, Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 34, 406pp (1890)
- Alexander Buchan and Robert Trail Omond, ‘The Ben Nevis Observations 1888-1892’ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 42, 552pp (1902)
- Alexander Buchan and Robert Trail Omond, ‘The Ben Nevis Observations 1893-1897’ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 43, 564pp (1905)
- Alexander Buchan and Robert Trail Omond, ‘The Meteorology of the Ben Nevis Observations part IV. Containing the observations for the years 1898, 1899, 1900, 1901 and 1902.’ Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, vol. 44 (part 1), 714pp (1910)
The two million observations printed in these 2,236 pages were transcribed by the Weather rescue Ben Nevis project, who in turn provided the images and transcribed data presented here.
Note that the data included here is only a small fraction of the full Ben Nevis dataset - specifically, only the Fort William pressure observations.