According to the Scottish meteorologist Alexander Buchan, in the late 1800s the fast-developing science of weather forecasting had a pressing need “to ascertain the course which storms follow, and the causes by which that course is determined, so that we may forecast… not only the certain approach of a storm, but the particular course that storm will take.”

With this aim in mind, the French astronomer Urbain le Verrier was publishing daily recordings of temperature, wind speed and atmospheric pressure from locations across Europe; but these were taken at sea level, and it was suggested that observations made simultaneously at different altitudes within a short geographical distance could reveal a great deal about changing conditions in higher sections of the atmosphere. What was needed, then, was a mountain that rose from sea level and had enough space at the summit for an observatory. In Britain, Ben Nevis fitted the bill exactly.

Ben Nevis Observatory viewed from the northeast, showing instruments. © Met Office Library and Archive

In 1880, while sufficient funds for the Ben Nevis Observatory were being sought by the Scottish Meteorological Society, a man named Clement Lindley Wragge made an extraordinary offer. He would ascend Ben Nevis every day from June until the end of October, taking readings from instruments which he would place at precise intervals all the way up to the summit, while his wife took simultaneous readings at sea level in Fort William.

Wragge’s daily routine involved setting off on horseback at 5.30am and riding up as far as Lochan Meall an t-Suidhe (the ‘Halfway Lochan’), where he left his horse and continued on foot. In his report, published in Nature in March 1883, he revealed that in blizzard conditions his hands “often became so numbed and swollen, and my paper so saturated that I had the utmost difficulty in… setting instruments and entering my observations.” In addition, his horse had a habit of wandering off, which meant that he had to run between instrument stations to reach them by the allotted time.

Although Wragge hired assistants, after two years of dedicated effort he must have been relieved to hear that a public appeal had raised enough money for a permanently-staffed observatory to be constructed on the summit of Ben Nevis. This was officially opened on 17th October 1883, and shortly afterwards three resident meteorologists – the Superintendent, Robert Traill Omond, and his assistants Angus Rankin and John Duncan – prepared to face their first winter in one of the most inhospitable places in Britain.

Meteorologists, L to R: Angus Rankin, Robert Traill Omond, Robert Mossman. © Met Office Library and Archive

Six months’ worth of fuel and food had been brought up by pack ponies; enough, it was hoped, to last until fresh supplies could reach them in the spring. Despite their isolation, a specially-installed telegraph cable allowed them to send regular reports to the weather station in Fort William, and to exchange news with the outside world.

The meteorologists’ official duties involved taking hourly readings around the clock from an array of instruments that were housed outdoors in Stevenson screens. During violent storms they had to rope themselves together for safety. One note in their logbook observes, “As soon as Mr Omond went outside… he was lifted off his feet and blown backwards against Mr Rankin who was knocked over. No observations for two hours.” Other entries are more succinct: “Notebook for observations torn in two and blown away.” “Rain gauge not found, probably blown over the North Cliff.” “Solid blocks of ice flying around.”

Snowdrifts often obliterated the instruments, but according to Robert Mossman, a subsequent assistant, a phenomenon of freezing rain known as ‘silver thaw’ caused the greatest havoc. He wrote, “A prolonged fall of silver thaw occasions considerable inconvenience to the observers; the rain freezes on their coats, gloves, and even on their faces.” Mossman also reported on the ‘great frost’ of 1895, which began in December 1894 and lasted for 54 days, bringing temperatures of 1.8° Fahrenheit (–16.7° Celsius). Thankfully the living quarters had a stove, but a special request for a bottle of whisky to be sent up was unfulfilled, which seems a trifle harsh in the circumstances.

Ben Nevis Observatory viewed from the south in 10–12 feet of snow. © Met Office Library and Archive

In May 1895, a soon-to-be-famous figure in the field of polar exploration joined the Ben Nevis team: William Speirs Bruce. Freshly returned from an expedition to the Antarctic on board a Dundee whaling ship, Bruce was keen to be off again to the polar regions, and he believed that the extreme conditions on Ben Nevis would give him valuable experience. (He did indeed put it to excellent use when he led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902–04, and set up the first weather station in the Antarctic).

During his time at the observatory, Bruce tried out a pair of skis that had been sent to him by his friend, WG Burn Murdoch. They had come from Norway, and Burn Murdoch claimed that they were the first skis ever imported into Scotland, but they nearly caused the untimely demise of their wearer. Experimenting on an icy slope near the summit, Bruce was alarmed to find himself shooting towards a precipice, beyond which lay a drop of some 500 feet. He quickly fell to the ground, dug his fingers into the ice, and managed to stop in the nick of time.

In summer, the well-worn pony track tempted increasing numbers of people to walk up Ben Nevis, and an enterprising Fort William hotelier named Robert Whyte set up a small hostelry next to the observatory, offering refreshments. The observatory staff complained that the visitors hindered their work, but in June 1895 they gave a warm welcome to the geologist Archibald Geikie, who had been surveying parts of the west coast and took the opportunity to spend a night on the Ben.

Ben Nevis Observatory covered in rime. © Met Office Library and Archive

Geikie recalled that, on arriving at the summit, he was surprised to find William Speirs Bruce lying flat on a sheet of snow. Far from suffering another mishap with his skis, Bruce was, in fact, studying the hundreds of insects that had been carried up the mountain by warm air currents and were now chilling out, quite literally, on the snowfields at the top. Many of the specimens he collected are now housed in the National Museum of Scotland.

Clear weather blessed Geikie’s visit, and the following morning, with icicles hanging from the observatory windows, he admired the breathtaking spectacle of a cloud inversion. The tops of the highest mountains protruded from a vast sea of white mist, and with his geologist’s eye he saw “a phantom representation of how the Highlands would appear as a great archipelago, during a time of serious submergence… I descended again to the lower earth after an experience at the summit which would ever remain vivid in memory.”

As for the meteorologists’ original hope, that the observatory would help to predict the arrival of storms, it seems that definite progress was made. In 1890, Alexander Buchan wrote that “to this important inquiry Ben Nevis contributes invaluable data, with its observations of sudden, rapid, and often short-continued changes of temperature and humidity, many of which are strictly limited to the upper region of the mountain.”

Despite the meteorologists’ diligent work, insufficient funds forced the Ben Nevis Observatory to close in October 1904. The weather station that Bruce set up in the Antarctic fared much better, however. By the end of his expedition he had staffed the hut, which he named Omond House after Robert Traill Omond, with two of his own men (including Robert Mossman) and three Argentinian meteorologists. Now named Orcadas Base, it still maintains an unbroken record of observations.

This article is from the Spring 2023 edition of The Geographer on Wicked and Wonderful Weather. Read the full magazine here, which contains multiple fascinating articles from the Met Office, the Royal Meteorological Society, the UN World Meteorological Society, and more.  

FURTHER READING

Geoffrey N Swinney (2002) William Speirs Bruce, the Ben Nevis Observatory, and Antarctic Meteorology (Scottish Geographical Magazine)

Alexander Buchan (1890) The Meteorology of Ben Nevis (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh)

Alexander Buchan & Robert Traill Omond (1902) The Meteorology of the Ben Nevis Observatories, Part II (Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh)

Clement L Wragge (March 1883) The Ben Nevis Observatory (Nature)

Sir Archibald Geikie (1924) A Long Life’s Work: an Autobiography