Rothamsted, which is in the ECN, provides one of the most important long-term climate records in the world with records stretching back to 1878. Back in 2021, weather enthusiast Judith Mayall, who lives close to Rothamsted, decided to knit a blanket showing changes in the daily maximum air temperature over time. Judith based her design on hourly mean air temperatures provided by ECN Rothamsted through the Rothamsted Weather Charts website.
Our photo shows Judith (second from left), proudly displaying her blanket, along with Tony Scott (ECN Rothamsted Site Manager) and Rothamsted Research staff Sarah Perryman and Margaret Glendining. The stripes - each formed of two knitted rows - represent individual days, from 1st January 2022 on the left to 31 December 2022 on the right. It took Judith 20 minutes to knit each row. The resulting blanket is a colourful representation of temperature throughout 2022. In the summer of that year new temperatures records were set in many parts of the country, including at many ECN sites. Among ECN terrestrial sites, the highest mean hourly temperature (38°C) was recorded at Rothamsted.
We are grateful to Judith for sharing her endeavours with us.
[Photos courtesy of Rothamsted Research]