The Weather Report which will appear in The Ross Gazette this week will be the last.

The Ross Weather Station is being automated and the intrepid group of observers are being disbanded. The report relies on local, manually recorded data being tabulated and sent to the paper and this will no longer be possible.

The station is already partially automated and full automation should be completed in October. The final nail in the coffin of manual recording is the worldwide removal of mercury thermometers to be completed soon.

Automation means data can be sent to The Met Office every few minutes day and night although some information that is recorded now such as cloud cover, present weather and visibility will not be measured. Although the information may become available on a daily or monthly basis the sheer volume of data makes it impossible to produce a weekly report.

Henry Southall, a local draper who lived at The Graig in Ashfield Crescent, began recordings in 1859 and he continued for 55 years till 1914 when it was taken over by Fred Parsons who continued for a record breaking 60 years, finally giving up in 1974. He made observations every three hours (except midnight and three am) and was deservedly awarded the MBE in 1965.

The station closed in 1975 but in 1984 the Ross Mayor, the late Arthur Clarke, made its re-establishment his mayoral project and it was opened by TV weather presenter Ian McGaskill in May 1985.

The current observer in charge is retired GP Dr Andy Rogers who has maintained the site to a high standard. He is helped as regards observations by Celia Glover, Gill Roes-Franken, Sheila and David Walshaw, Peter Reynolds, Phil Angus and Neal Hopcraft.

With almost 160 years of manual daily records Ross has one of the longest sets of weather information in the world and the automatic station will continue the tradition.