It may be Oliver’s best kept secret of 90 years.
Last week Environment Canada honoured the Town for nearly a century of dedicated weather observing.
Bruce Lohnes from Environment Canada presented Director of Operations Shawn Goodsell with a certificate honouring the community for collecting historical weather data.
The technology used is very old, including two thermometers that you can only acquire in Europe, a thermograph machine with a roll of graph paper, a precipitation cylinder, and a sunshine recorder straight out of a science fiction movie. It looks like a crystal ball inside a medieval sphere.
Lohnes said there are approximately 900 of these weather stations in communities across Canada. The Oliver station is located in the Public Works yard and is maintained by staff on a volunteer basis.
Lohnes said the station provides crucial historical data – the kind of data that scientists love. Farmers use it too, he pointed out.
Public Works clerk Nancy Boutin said the only thing it doesn’t record is wind data.
