In 2001 I retired from the Eleanor Rathbone Chair of Sociology in the University of Liverpool and now live in Carmel (near Holywell) in North Wales and continue with my research and writing. I am married with a son, daughter and three grandsons. My hobbies include gardening and photography - when I have the time. I have always been deeply committed to the peace movement and to the struggle against racism in all its forms, I'm a member of the North Wales Race Equality Network, a governor of two schools, Holywell High School and Ysgol Gwenffrwd,
I run a small weather station at which I also receive images from weather satellites, including the NOAA series of polar orbiting satellites. The NOAA16 image, left, was received on July 13th 2003.
The Meteosat-9 geostationary satellite gives an image of our hemisphere every 15 minutes (and there is a 'rapid scan' of Northern latitudes every 5 minutes). On the right you can see the image of Europe for noon on 27 October 2004, it shows the depression that brought high winds and flooding to the UK . This false colour image was produced using David Taylor's GeoSatSignal software.
My weather station is a good, old fashioned outdoor weather station where the observations are recorded at 1800 UTC daily. The barograph and Fortin barometer are situated indoors. Because of my occasional absences I also have a Davis Vantage Pro wireless weather station. The 1800 observations continue in the traditional way.
See also TORRO and The Group for Earth Observation
