Weather books and log books
Reading and record-keeping for people who watch the weather properly. The range covers observing reference works, log books for recording your own readings, and one or two lighter titles.
If you are setting up to record rather than to read, the log books here pair naturally with a home weather station or a barometer.
The Weather Observers Handbook
Stephen Burt's handbook is the standard reference for anyone making their own measurements, and it is the book we recommend most often. It covers what each instrument actually measures, how exposure and siting affect the reading, how to compare your data against official records, and how to keep an archive that will still make sense in twenty years.
It is genuinely useful rather than decorative. Most of the mistakes people make with a new station — sensor in the sun, rain gauge under a tree, anemometer too low — are covered clearly, with the reasoning rather than just the rule. We stock the second edition in paperback, which is the current revision and the one to buy, and the first edition in hardback for anyone who prefers a hardback or is completing a set.
Keeping a written record
Digital stations record automatically, but a written log still earns its place. It forces a daily observation, it captures the things a sensor cannot — first frost, snow lying, the character of a storm — and it survives the failure of any particular piece of hardware or cloud service.
The Weather Watchers 3-Year Log Book is laid out for daily entries across three years on facing pages, so you can see the same date in previous years at a glance. That comparison is where a handwritten log becomes genuinely interesting, and three years is enough to start noticing how unusual a particular season really is.
For younger readers
In The Garden is a children's poetry book about the garden and the seasons — a gentle introduction rather than a technical one, and a reasonable small gift alongside a simple thermometer or rain gauge.
Reading alongside your instruments
Most of what makes weather observation rewarding is understanding what you are looking at, and that is a reading job as much as an equipment job. A barometer becomes far more interesting once you can connect a falling trace to an approaching front, and a rain gauge becomes more interesting once you know what a normal month looks like for your area.
If you are building up from a basic setup, the natural additions are a barometer for pressure, a rain gauge for rainfall, a hygrometer for humidity and a wind meter for wind. For a single instrument covering most of it, see home weather stations.
Availability
Book and calendar stock varies through the year, and titles come and go with their publishers. If you are looking for something we are not currently showing, call 01243 558280 and we will tell you whether it can still be sourced. For gift ideas beyond books, see weather gifts and gadget gifts.