New Meteorological System installed at Bottom Woods Met Office

L-R - Murray Henry, Andy Pritchard, Tess Brock, Garry Mercury. Engineers missing from the photo Lewis Philips and Robert Cappleman

A team of engineers from the MET Office UK were recently on-Island installing a new meteorological system at the Met Office, Bottom Woods. This upgrade, which was announced in July 2019, replaces the outgoing Meteorological Monitoring System (MMS) to SurfaceNet, a direct replacement of MMS for Automated Land Network sites. SurfaceNet is the next generation product for collecting and processing surface-based observational meteorological data (temperatures, barometric pressures, humidity, wind speed/direction etc) transmitted in near real-time.

The engineers, along with the support provided by the Met Station Staff, were able to successfully install and configure all the new sensors linked into the equipment within the two week timeframe the engineers had on-Island. Notably, the majority of the vast lengths of underground cabling was replaced and new remote switches were installed into the independent server, alongside a number of other activities.

Met Station Manager, Lori Bennett, commented:

It was great to meet and work directly with the engineers. To have the opportunity to finally put faces to the names we ordinarily only know through communicating via emails, was an absolute pleasure. With installations of this nature, ensuring that the logistics of all the equipment was on-Island prior to a visit would ordinarily be a challenge, however given this installation was one of the final on the engineers calendar to complete, they were very well organised. Despite a few teething problems with the networks were able to complete the work successfully and we are now fully operational on the new system.”

Senior Installation Engineer, Andy Pritchard, concluded:

“The upgrade at Bottom Woods was the culmination of the SurfaceNet project and was one of the last sites to be transitioned, the Met Office having already completed around 295 sites over the last four years in the UK and at overseas locations. The team of visiting engineers from the Systems Engineering and the Network Services Teams felt very privileged to be given the opportunity to work with the local Met Station staff. Their help and cooperation in the run up to, and whilst we were on the Island, was key in ensuring that the visit successfully resulted in a seamless transition to the new system. The team were also able to carry out other work as well, which hopefully will future proof the site should new sensors and technologies be added in the future.”

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SHG
30 March 2023

St Helena Government Communications Hub

Telephone: 22470
Email: kimberley.peters@sainthelena.gov.sh