Weather Investigation

Aim:

To record the temperature around School to try to discover if there is a microclimate.

Hypothesis:

There is a microclimate around the school. The temperature will change.

Geographical Theory

What is a microclimate?

The climate of a small, specific place within a larger area. An area as small as a yard or park can have several different microclimates depending on how much sunlight, shade, or exposure to the wind there is at a particular spot. Compare macroclimate.

Plan:

In my experiment I am going to measure

* Wind speed

* Wind direction

* Temperature- caretakers room, the English room, Italian room, tree by tennis courts

* Air pressure

* Rain fall

* Cloud cover

Method

1) Firstly, we went to the Geography room where we took a look at the Barometer. We read the black needle and then turned the gold needle to the black needle so that tomorrow we would be able to read the air pressure for today.

2) Then we went outside to the rain gauge near the pond. We lifted it up and read how many millimetres of water were inside it. We then emptied it so that tomorrow we cold read from fresh.

3) Next, we went to the tennis courts and measured the wind speed and wind direction using an anemometer and our finger. To use the anemometer you need to hold the digital reader in your hand and lift the other part until you get the highest reading. We licked our finger to find the wing direction and also used a compass then where our finger felt the coldest was where the wing was coming from.

4) We the measured the cloud cover by using observation and counted the number of clods comparing it in eighths.

5) Finally, we measured the temperature around the school reading the results from four different thermometers situated in four different places around the school. These are: the Italian room, the English room, the tennis courts and outside the caretakers room. We measured the current temperature from a normal thermometer and the lowest and highest temperature of the day from a max. min. thermometer.

Analysis

On Wednesday there was the least amount of air pressure but the most amount of rainfall. It also had the slowest wind speed but the highest number of oktas. Also,on Friday there was the most amounts of air pressure and the lowest number of oktas for the cloud cover.

Description of results:

On Monday the air pressure amount was between the highest and lowest amount, 998 mb. It had a lot of rainfall of 10 mm and the highest fastest wind speed of 6.4 ms going into the direction of east and 7 oktas for cloud cover.

On Tuesday it had the second smallest amount of air pressure of 989 mb and the median amount of rainfall which is 5.5 mm. The wind speed was one of the slowest as it was only 5.1 ms heading east. There were 6 oktas for cloud cover.

On Wednesday there was the least amount of air pressure with 981 mb and the most rainfall which is 11.5 mm. It had the slowest of wind speed of 0.75 ms heading south – east and the most cloud cover of 7 oktas.

On Thursday it was a median amount of air pressure, 998 mb and the second smallest amount of rainfall with 5 mm but on that day the rain gauge tipped over so 5 mm was not the correct result. There was a wind speed of 5.9 heading south and the cloud cover was of 6 oktas.

Lastly on Friday there was the highest amount of air pressure, 1012 mb and the lowest amount of rainfall which was 1.8mm. The wind speed consisted of 6 heading north the cloud cover being 5 oktas as the lowest.

Conclusion

I have concluded that there is a microclimate in different places around St Michael’s Grammar School. But on certain days it was more obvious then others. This is because all the temperatures are varied because of small changes such as facing south- which is where the sun is, or if there is a building in the way which can block sunlight, or if the weather is cloudy, which blocks the sun from getting to a certain area, which changes the temperature in the different areas.

Evaluation

This investigation was quite accurate but there are a few ways I would make this better. First of all I would make sure that the rain gauge is straight and steady so that it collects the right amount of rain that should be collected so that the rainfall results will be completely 100% accurate. Next I would make sure that the wind speed results are correct as well by using the anemometer properly and waiting longer for the highest amount of wind speed so that we can get a larger result. Another thing is to reset the temperature everyday at the exact minute from the past 24 hours so that the temperature will be accurate for every day. Overall the investigation had reasonably accurate results and there are ways to improve it but it in the end it was a great weather investigation.