For 19 years he was known as The Weather Man – Ashburton’s own recorder of wind, rain and temperature.
Today Graham Taylor has retired from running his own weather station in the town, but has not given up his passion completely, regularly checking a rain gauge outside his rest home room.
‘‘They call me The Weather Man, but I think that’s an over-description,’’ the 84-year-old said, reminiscing on the highlight of his life that was operating the station.
‘‘Because all I was really doing is just taking daily recordings, not forecasting.’’
Those recordings were as reliable as the sun rising and setting each day.
Many in Mid Canterbury, including farmers, businesses, local government and media, accessed Graham’s Weather Station online to make use of its up-to-date and hyper-localised readings.
In the last 15 years, it had about half a million views within New Zealand.
Graham said his fascination with weather began as he grew up on his family’s farm at Ashton.
He could see the dramatic effect rain could have on the landscape and people’s lives.
‘‘It was that dry at Ashton without irrigation, a rabbit had to pack its lunch to get across the paddock,’’ Graham said.
A vivid memory from when he was 10 was when a seven-week drought suddenly broke as the skies opened, forcing Graham and his father to rush into the farm’s chicken coop for shelter.
‘‘But we got pushed out by the pet sheep, he wanted to shelter in the fowl house.’’
It was another 55 years before Graham got to indulge his fascination for weather completely.
Retiring from the meatworks industry, he wanted something to keep him busy.
He imported a Davis 6152c weather station from America.
He installed it in the backyard of his Allenton home, then later at Netherby when he moved house.
He had to learn to use specialised software and create a website, in order to ensure the station’s automated readings were accessible and updated in real time.
The data was thorough, including humidity, dew point, wind chill, and grass temperature.
It was also formatted, into graphs, diagrams and tables.
Graham packed up his weather station for good about two months ago.
Shaking associated with Parkinson’s disease had been making it more difficult to handle the equipment and website.
He still takes a keen interest in the weather, measuring rainfall with a gauge he has installed outside his room.
‘‘It’s handy if there’s a heavy downpour,’’ Graham said.
Historic records throughout the 19-year life of the weather station include highest temperature of 36.7 degrees on February 6, 2011, lowest temperature -6.6 degrees on June 7, 2008, highest wind gust 98.8kmh on September 10, 2013, record daily rain 79.9mm on one day in May last year, heaviest frost 11 degrees, about 10 years ago.
Graham said the fact he never forecast the weather did not stop people asking him.
‘‘If people asked me if it was going to rain, I would say ‘The met office texted me to say there will be rain down to ground level’.’’
To someone else, he said ‘‘It’s going to be fine indoors’’.
