Weather Glasgow July/August 1914 in the period leading to the Great War

[petermuir]

I'm putting together a piece about a Glasgow family and what the male members did in the Great War and would like to get a sense/details of the weather that late summer/autumn in order to add some colour to the narrative.

The eldest joined the local regiment --HLI-- on the the declaration of war on Germany.

Try as I might I've been unable to do so and would be grateful to receive the help and guidance of forum members.

 

[Rockford]

Hello

I think there are three potential sources, some of which you may have tried:

1. Did local newspapers print the weather - maybe only if it was unseasonably warm or cold? The Glasgow Herald and The Daily Record are both available on the British Newspaper Archive. I'll have a look and report back. The Evening Times isn't on the BNA, but is available in the Mitchell Library if you're local.

[Update - The Daily Record appears to have printed the weather each day under the heading "To-day's Weather", so I think the BNA is your friend here. If you don;t have a subscription, your library may be able to access. I don't know if the Daily Record is also included in the FindMyPast newspapers]

2. The Met Office has archive data that covers Glasgow, but it seems you'd have to contact them for access - this link should show results for searching just for Glasgow https://library.metoffice.gov.uk/Portal/Default/en-GB/SearchResults They do publish some data from historic weather stations, but the nearest one to Glasgow is Paisley, which opened in 1959.

3. Any local histories / non fiction accounts of the war specific to Glasgow. I haven't got any, but if you are local, the library catalogue has hits for Highland Light Infantry, which might give a couple of likely candidates.

I think 1 and 3 are perhaps your best bet for something usable.

If any other potential sources come to mind, I'll update here.

Best wishes

Brian

Edited 8 April by Rockford
Updated information re Daily Record

[rolt968]

From personal experience, I would expect that it rained some of the time!

Seriously it might be worth looking at the regimental histories of battalions raised about that time, both to see if there is amy mention of the weather and if the photos show anything interesting. For example the history of 16 (2nd Glasgow - Boys Brigade) HLI certainly has at least one photo of men parading in civvies during the raising of the battaion.

You might also like to look at the smokey haze, in the very late autumn and winter actual fog/smog, that sometimes hung over Glasgow because of the number of coal fires.

RM

[petermuir]

Brian,

Thank you for your excellent suggestions. I'm now based in St Albans so sadly can't access/visit Glasgow based sources in person.

I'll try the BNA. Sounds like a good place to start.

Once again thanl you

[petermuir]

Hi RM,

Quote

From personal experience, I would expect that it rained some of the time!

I agree! Rain! It was one of the reasons we moved back down south.

Thank you also for your other suggestions.

Best wishes

[petermuir]

Brian,

As suggested I searched the BNA and hence Daily Record.

Reading a number of articles it would appear that July was a bit of a heat wave leading into August when the weather returned to the Glasgow norm ie wet and windy. Will continue searching the BNA

Once again Brian for your advice.

[lostinspace]

Peter,

Met Office has all the weather information available on their site. This link is to the first half of August info -
https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_59bcf964-c68d-4b1d-9cf4-4ed179bfee9d/

Dave

 

Edited 9 April by lostinspace

[lostinspace]

Here are the July to December files -  https://digital.nmla.metoffice.gov.uk/IO_6ab7a41a-bf8d-4c4f-b728-cb436cb5e79f/
I took a look at the first sixteen days of August from the Glasgow reporting station (highs and lows for the last twenty-four hours). They seem to be on the cool side; high temperatures range from 58 degrees (F) on the 5th to 76 degrees on the 15th, with low temperatures of 47 degrees (on the 8th and 16th) to 53 degrees (on the 3rd, 14th, & 15th).

[Rockford]

Thanks for posting this Dave - I must have been looking in the wrong place, as I couldn't see anything downloadable for Glasgow in the right time period. 

Best wishes

Brian

[lostinspace]

Hi Brian, 

You're welcome, it's a clunky site that takes time to get used to, but has some really good information available.

Dave 

[petermuir]

Thank you lostinspace. What a fascinating resource.  

[lostinspace]

Peter,

You're welcome, good luck with the project.

Dave

[petermuir]

Looking at the data I would grateful for further help with understanding the various abbreviations or shorthand used in the 'weather' description columns of the reports.

Is there a 'key' somewhere decoding these?

[lostinspace]

The section you have marked may have something to do with the degree of cloud cover observed during the day (a guess really). The headings give you you some idea of what the shorthand signifies but I haven't found anything on the site that actually explains them. This  https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/research/library-and-archive/library/publications/factsheets/factsheet_11-interpreting-weather-charts.pdf may be of some help, although I don't think it interprets the historical symbols.  Hopefully, there is a meteorological expert on the forum that can help decipher the above information for us.

Dave 

[petermuir]

Once again Dave -- thank you. 

Armed with that information--I note your comments regarding whether or not they are applicable--I'll investigate further.

Bob

[petermuir]

Dave

I consulted the forum on netweather.tv.

The forum member 'Cambrian' on the Historic Weather forum advised:

They appear to be the old Beaufort letters, which were used around that time, but replaced very swiftly thereafter.

he referred me to the Met Office doc you provided earlier. 

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/binaries/content/assets/metofficegovuk/pdf/research/library-and-archive/library/publications/factsheets/factsheet_11-interpreting-weather-charts.pdf

The really useful bit for these Beaufort letters gets going around page 29-30. There are some others relating to cloud cover on page 18.

 

[lostinspace]

Yes, I saw the reference to the Beaufort letters, but they don't (quite) seem to correspond to those used in the 1914 weather reports. The only one that seemed the same was 'o' for overcast. I didn't read through the whole document though. Several years ago I downloaded the reports for the last four months of 1914 and the first five months of 1915 but can't remember where they came from, I don't think it was the Met Office site though. 

Dave