Bablake Weather Station is headed by Steve Jackson, who is assisted by four students during school term-time. With computerisation, a large team of assistants is no longer required. After all, readings are now taken at home and at locations even outside of Coventry, or even the UK- even this website and the answerphone can be updated remotely!
At its peak in the 1990s, the climatological station team would have included up to 14 pupils from the school, each of whom would have had duties to perform on a rota - these would have included drawing up synoptic charts, downloading satellite images, taking manual weather readings, writing forecasts, updating data bases, and responding to public enquiries.
Just in case you are interested, here is a brief pen picture of each member of the current weather station team;
Steve Jackson -
AKA the "Boss" - Weather has been a hobby since boyhood, though passion number one is his beloved Aston Villa ! He has been known in the past to travel all round the country supporting his team. More recently gardening and building ponds appears to have taken over somewhat however. Now living at Hatton Park near Warwick with wife Lynda, who also teaches at Bablake, so the automatic weather station became a priority! He is the father of Nicki and Andy, both ex-Bablake pupils but now forging their own careers as an optician and marketing executive respectively.
Jonathan Smith - aged 17
Chris Starkey - aged 16
Lizzie Stefaniak - aged 15
Hayley Smith - aged 12
Current members of the weather station team - Summer 2009
Steve has been Head of Geography at Bablake for almost 20 years; he was awarded the Michael Hunt prize for 2009 by the Royal
Meteorological Society for increasing the understanding of meteorology and climatology among members of the general public - he is now a life memeber
and fellow of the Royal Society
Jonathan joined the team in early 2007 and is now the most senior member of the pupil Weather Station team. He is a talented public speaker, representing the school on many an
occasion, and he also enjoys taking part in school plays and represents the school at chess. Due to his public speaking background Jonathan is a favourite for the answerphone duty each morning,
but he also enjoys analysing the weather data and uploading the forecast and weather statistics to the Weather Station's website
Lizzie in a reflective mood! Lizzie joined the team in September 2006,and is sister of ex BWS observers Jamie and Luke, now at University studying Medicine and
Geography respectively. Lizzie is currently learning the ropes, but still hasn't made the coffee yet
Here is Hayley, looking very smart in her school uniform! Hayley joined BWS in June 2009. She enjoys English, Drama, History and Geography. She takes a full and active part in the weather station including collating the daily weather observations and reading the forecast on the answer phone to the public. She is the younger sister of Jonathan, and the extended Smith family play a vital role in keeping the Met Office diary up to date every day of the year with weather observations from Coventry.
Chris Starkey - Chris Starkey joined the weather station in 2008. He is involved in school music and drama, as well as debating and the Duke of Edinburgh. He regularly records the morning data for the weather station and helps with other duties where he can. Chris learns more about the weather everyday!