Now Graham Taylor has retired from running his own weather station in the town. But he has not given up his passion completely, regularly checking a rain gauge outside his rest home room.
‘‘They call me The Weather Man, but I think that’s an over-description,’’ the 84-year-old said, reminiscing on the highlight of his life that was operating the station.
‘‘Because all I was really doing is just taking daily recordings, not forecasting.’’
Those recordings were as reliable as the sun rising and setting each day.
Many in Mid Canterbury, including farmers, businesses, local government and media, accessed Graham’s Weather Station online to make use of its up-to-date and hyper-localised readings.
In the last 15 years, it had about half a million views within New Zealand.
Graham said his fascination with weather began as he grew up on his family’s farm at Ashton.
He could see the dramatic effect rain could have on the landscape and people’s lives.
‘‘It was that dry at Ashton without irrigation, a rabbit had to pack its lunch to get across the paddock,’’ Graham said.
‘‘But we got pushed out by the pet sheep, he wanted to shelter in the fowl house.’’
It was another 55 years before Graham got to indulge his fascination for weather completely.
Retiring from the meatworks industry, he wanted something to keep him busy.
He imported a Davis 6152c weather station from America.
He installed it in the backyard of his Allenton home, then later at Netherby when he moved house.
He had to learn to use specialised software and create a website to ensure the station’s automated readings were accessible and updated in real time.
The data was thorough, including humidity, dew point, wind chill, and grass temperature.
It was also formatted into graphs, diagrams and tables.
Shaking associated with Parkinson’s disease had been making it more difficult to handle the equipment and website.
He still takes a keen interest in the weather, measuring rainfall with a gauge he has installed outside his room.
‘‘It’s handy if there’s a heavy downpour,’’ Graham said.
Historic records throughout the 19-year life of the weather station includes a highest temperature of 36.7 deg C on February 6, 2011, the lowest temperature of -6.6 deg C on June 7, 2008, the highest wind gust of 98.8km/h on September 10, 2013, the highest recorded daily rain fall of 79.9mm on a day in May last year, and the heaviest frost which occurred about 10 years ago.
Graham said the fact he never forecasted the weather did not stop people from asking him what it will be like tomorrow.
‘‘If people asked me if it was going to rain, I would say ‘The Met Office texted me to say there will be rain down to ground level’.’’
To someone else, he said: ‘‘It’s going to be fine indoors.’’
