Throughout his life Piazzi Smyth always demonstrated much more than a passing interest in Meteorology. This interest was so strong as to indicate that had he not been an astronomer, he may certainly have been a meteorologist making great strides in that field.
In the late 1850’s he took on the task of collating all of the meteorological data for the whole of Scotland in the Observatory on Calton Hill – some 370,000 individual annual measurements. He carried on doing this work until well into the 1880’s.
Additionally, wherever he went, he recorded the local climate, be it in Tenerife, or on the Giza plateau.
And when he retired to Yorkshire, he set up his own meteorological station to pursue this activity, also particularly studying cloud formations.
He was, however, miffed when unable to perform the continuous collection of weather data as evidenced by the following two extracts from his log in October 1893 –
Here the handwriting informs us that he has to break off for a health-seeking visit to Harrogate, but an extraordinarily interesting weather pattern is on the way.
But when he returns – red writing – the weather pattern has “gone forever”!
The importance of his observations cannot be underestimated, and this has led to their preservation to this day.
Dr Bruce Vickery