My interest in weather lore started during my childhood.The Daily Express newspaper carried a regular contribution from Bill Foggitt who was acknowledged as a specialist in the field.He lived in Thirsk,only about 40 miles from my village, and so I found myself taking a much closer look at the natural world as an indicator of the forthcoming weather.I made mental notes of high the nests were in the trees and where the frogspawn had been laid in ponds, because these were very significant markers according to Mr.Foggitt.
My Grandfather reinforced these ideas with comments such as "wet before seven, fine by eleven" and "while there`s still snow in the hedgebacks,there more snow to come"... comments which proved accurate 9 times out of ten!

In the mid 90`s I responded to a plea from BBC Radio Cleveland for a team of local people to act as Weather Watchers. I was given an Official Maximum and Minimum Thermometer and then went on air, for about 1 minute at 8a.m. every Monday morning, to report the weather conditions to the Breakfast Show presenter of the day.I found myself getting fascinated by the weather patterns and began to wonder if there was anything in the old weather lore predictions.I contacted Jon Clapham at the met.office, who was very encouraging, but the data I needed was not freely available.There was only one thing for it.....collect my own data.

For Christmas 2002 I was given a very basic" weather station" and so I decided that 2003 was going to be the year I tested the theories....and what a year it turned out to be!
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