The winds of change have blown through Melbourne’s weather recording scene, with the Bureau of Meteorology’s (BoM) La Trobe Street observation post closing on Tuesday after 107 years.
Veteran observer Gary Missen had the honour of doing the last 9am reading, including of the temperature (20.7 degrees) and rainfall in the past 24 hours (zero).
The site, a triangular mesh enclosure opposite Carlton Gardens on the corner of La Trobe and Victoria streets, has long been one of those “I wonder what goes on there” places.
It might have looked like a scattering of metal equipment dotting a wedge of lawn, but for generations it has been where Melbourne’s official weather information was obtained.
Mr Missen said when it opened in 1908, moving from the Observatory at the Royal Botanic Gardens, the site was surrounded by gardens, low-rise buildings and horses and carts on the roads.
But the growing number of skyscrapers and volume of traffic have been deemed not conducive to reflecting the weather conditions of greater Melbourne. Because of blockage from skyscrapers, from 2009 to 2013 wind readings were taken from Essendon Airport.
On December 9 last year, after a year-long trial, a new site at Olympic Park just south-east of the central business district became the new chief weather observation post. Official wind gauge records started there in late 2013.
La Trobe Street has operated as a back-up for the past month, but on Tuesday tradesmen started removing its fittings.
A bureau spokeswoman said Olympic Park was set much further back from roads and buildings.
It is automated, with no need for manual readings, and all gauges are connected digitally to the bureau headquarters in Collins Street.
Everything from wind direction to air pressure and humidity can be posted on the BoM website every few minutes.
There was no ceremony to mark the La Trobe Street closure. Mr Missen, a BoM employee since 1973 and a regular observer at La Trobe Street since 1990, lamented that the Olympic Park site is out of the way of the public.
And staff visit only for maintenance, so the human interaction element will be gone. He used to love showing curious passersby around and explaining how the La Trobe Street station worked.
Cheeky drivers would yell out from the road “what happened to those showers?” he said.
The downside was measuring water evaporation or trying to read a thermometer when it was pouring rain or boiling hot, he said.
La Trobe Street had served its purpose well, but the new site was much better and more reflective of the surrounds, he said.
One thing is certain. “The weather will go on. It’s one thing that doesn’t stop.”
This story first appeared in The Age
