AN exhibition has opened at Teignmouth Museum to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the town becoming part of the National Weather Observing Network, making it one of the UK's longest-established reporting stations.
Opening the display of recording equipment and climate information, the mayor of Teignmouth, Cllr David Weekes, said that tourism depended on accurate weather records.
Teignmouth's very own Met officer, David Potter, is employed by Teignbridge Council, and has been in the post since 2001. He was inspired to apply for the position when he kept seeing 'blanks' against Teignmouth in the daily weather reports published in The Times.
'It made me want to put Teignmouth back on the map,' he said.
He has been successful in that because the national broadsheet newspapers now carry daily weather reports from the resort.
Mr Potter takes twice-daily air temperature and rainfall readings from a Stevenson screen located between Teignmouth's bowling green and the Den. Once a day he also takes sea-water temperatures by dropping a robust thermometer into the water off the pier, and he records the sunlight hours from an instrument on the roof of Douglas House.