The station
CWL-3 is the third marker along the old sea wall, past the sailing club and before the shingle spit. Nothing about it is grand.
What we measure
| Reading | Instrument | When |
|---|---|---|
| Tide height | Painted staff gauge on the groyne pile | Every reading |
| Wind | Handheld cup anemometer, one-minute mean | Every reading |
| Air temperature | Shaded alcohol thermometer under the rail | Every reading |
| Water temperature | Bucket sample off the jetty end | Every reading |
| Pressure | Aneroid barometer in the club porch | Mornings |
| Sea state & sky | By eye, against the usual scale | Every reading |
Why by hand
An automatic buoy would be tidier, and one day we may run one. For now the walk down does the recorder as much good as the log, and a human notices things a sensor skips: the smell of the mud at spring low, a seal on the far bank, the way the swell keeps running for a day after the wind has gone.
The gauge datum was reset in spring after the groyne repair, so heights before then read about eight centimetres low against the current mark.