History of Eastbourne's Weather Station

Find out about the history of Eastbourne's meteorological service. Official weather records have been kept continuously in Eastbourne since 1867.

Continuous Records Since 1867

The Meteorological Observation Station for Eastbourne was established in 1888 and was one of the first thirty or so stations to submit daily observations to the Met Office.

In April 1976, a number of old registers were found in an attic, covering the period 1867 to 1887, but 1883/84 were missing.

However, the observer at the time, Miss W. L. Brodie-Hall, had submitted returns for this period and copies were obtained from the Royal Meteorological Society, allowing our records to be traced continuously back to 1867.

Miss Brodie Hall was the grand-daughter of Alexander Brodie, Vicar of Eastbourne from 1809 to 1828. She was a founder member of Eastbourne's Natural History Society in 1867 and it was in this connection that she chose to maintain meteorological data.

Eastbourne is the oldest near surface sea water temperature recording station in the UK, continuously recording daily temperatures since 1892.

History of the UK Climatological Observing Network

Eastbourne Borough Council's official weather station is part of the UK Climatological Observing Network.

The network formally came into existence in 1884 and Eastbourne joined in 1888, having already been in operation since 1867.

Around a quarter of the stations that contributed to the early days of the network, including Eastbourne, are still submitting returns well over 100 years later.

Eastbourne is classified as a health resort because in 1912 the Meteorological Office decided to encourage local authorities to set up climatological stations which would be inspected annually to ensure that common high standards of observing were maintained.