Brocken weather station
The Brocken weather station is a listed weather station on the Brocken in the Harz Mountains in Saxony-Anhalt .
location
The weather station is on the Brocken summit , about 200 meters southeast of the summit point marked by the Brockenuhr . Brockengarten is located immediately southwest of the tower . The location belongs to the district of Schierke of the city of Wernigerode .
Architecture and history
The first hourly measurement of air pressure values on the Brocken has been handed down from 1820. At the request of two Braunschweig scientists, the Brocken landlord Eduard Nehse regularly noted temperature values and other weather observations from 1836, according to other information from 1838. In 1847 Nehse received an official order to carry out such measurements and observations from the Prussian Meteorological Institute . From 1850 the next Brocken landlord Emanuel Köhler took over the task. In addition to the air pressure, which was displayed by a barometer hanging on the window frame in the dining room , values such as the outside temperature and the depth of snow were also recorded. In 1859, however, Köhler ended the time-consuming and, in particular, inaccurate measurements of the snow depths. In addition, it turned out that the chunk data were not sufficient for weather forecasts.
From the beginning of the 1880s, the meteorologist and head of the Magdeburg weather station, Richard Assmann , pushed for the establishment of a weather station on the Brocken, as he was convinced of the importance of the data for meteorology . From 1882 onwards, at least regular weather observations were resumed. While a Brockenwirt employee took the measurements in winter, a postal worker was deployed in summer. Other information cites the year 1893 as the time of the establishment of a provisional meteorological station. Ultimately, Assmann succeeded in 1895 in obtaining state approval for 4,200 marks to build a station. Since the amount was not enough, Assmann collected private donations. A wooden three-story tower was built, which was attached directly to the Brocken inn. While a living room was set up on the ground floor, there was a so-called scholar's room above and the room for the instruments and observations on the top floor. The technical equipment was modern for the time. There was an aneroid barograph , an aspiration psychrometer , a meteoroscope , a cloud mirror and a sunshine autograph . Aßmann inaugurated the station on October 1, 1895.
The first employee was Ludwig Koch, who was also responsible for the postal service. In view of the 141,311 mail items to be processed by him in 1895, however, he felt overburdened and quit work at the weather station, so that a new employee was hired. In 1897 the meteorologist Richard Hennig was responsible for the observations.
However, due to the harsh weather conditions on the Brocken summit, the station quickly showed structural defects. In 1909 funds were requested for a renovation, which were approved in 1912. In 1913 the new building was erected as a shell made of stone, the expansion continued until 1914. The new building was much more comfortably furnished and also had a kitchen, bathroom, pantry and other storage rooms. As an additional technical facility, there was a darkroom for developing photographs in order to quickly evaluate the data. In 1918/1919 central heating was retrofitted and the insulation of the building was improved with wooden cladding on the upper part of the house.
In 1937, the Reichspost built a 64-meter-high television tower in the immediate vicinity of the weather station. This falsified the measurement results. In order to ensure proper measurements, it was decided to build a new weather station at a distance of 250 meters. This tower, which is still preserved today, was completed in the spring of 1939.
During the Second World War on April 17, 1945, the weather station was damaged in a US bombing raid on the Brocken summit and artillery fire from the area of Wernigerode . The weather observations were discontinued. The state weather service of Saxony-Anhalt tried to rebuild. In September 1947, meteorologist Kurt Glass and an employee moved into an extension to the television tower and began recording and reporting data. At the same time, the tower of the weather station was repaired so that regular operations could begin there from October 20, 1948.
In the GDR , the station was a first-order station of the Meteorological Service of the GDR from 1950 . Because of the proximity to the border - the Brocken was a restricted military area - the employees of the station were checked in particular by the Ministry of State Security prior to their deployment . With the reunification, the station came to the German Weather Service .
On March 16, 2010, the German Meteorological Service inaugurated the station as a climate reference station that is intended to be used for long-term climate monitoring. On April 11, 2014, a single-engine Cessna 182 flying too low hit the superstructure of the tower in fog on the way from Rügen to Reichelsheim in Hesse and crashed. The two aircraft occupants were killed.
The weather station is manned by seven employees 24 hours a day (as of 2017). However, the German Meteorological Service announced that the weather station, like all other stations, would be converted to fully automatic operation by 2020. The reason given is that the importance of soil measurements for weather forecasts has decreased significantly and that, overall, fully automatic measurements are also being used in climate research. The employees are urgently needed in other areas. However, the Brocken weather station is the most visited station in Germany with around 1000 visitors a year . Station manager Klaus Adler was critical of the planned conversion. In addition to the necessary visitor care, he cited the unreliability of the automatic device for certain measurements as a point of criticism.
In the local register of monuments , the weather station is listed as a monument under registration number 094 56167 .
literature
- Thorsten Schmidt, Jürgen Korsch: The Brocken - mountain between nature and technology . Schmidt-Buch-Verlag, Wernigerode 2006, ISBN 3-928977-59-8 , p. 15 ff.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Thorsten Schmidt, Jürgen Korsch: The Brocken - Mountain between Nature and Technology , Schmidt-Buch-Verlag, Wernigerode 2006, ISBN 3-928977-59-8 , page 15.
- ↑ Eberhard Löblich: Picked up on the way to the summit, stories along the Brocken Path. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2001, ISBN 3-89812-055-4 , page 84.
- ↑ Eberhard Löblich: Picked up on the way to the summit, stories along the Brocken Path. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2001, ISBN 3-89812-055-4 , page 85.
- ↑ Eberhard Löblich: Picked up on the way to the summit. Stories along the Brocken Path. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2001, ISBN 3-89812-055-4 , page 88.
- ↑ Gertrud Nöth: Brocken mountain weather station ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF)
- ↑ Brocken weather station inaugurated as a climate reference station. Press release of the German Weather Service from March 16, 2010.
- ↑ Pilot error led to plane crash. In: Volksstimme , published online on September 23, 2015.
- ↑ Jens Müller: Brockenwetterwarte: conversion to machines continues to cause criticism. in Der Brockenwirt , III / 2017, page 12 f.
- ↑ Jens Müller: Brockenwetterwarte: conversion to machines continues to cause criticism. in Der Brockenwirt , III / 2017, page 13
- ↑ Short question and answer Olaf Meister (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen), Prof. Dr. Claudia Dalbert (Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen), Ministry of Culture March 19, 2015 Printed matter 6/3905 (KA 6/8670) List of monuments Saxony-Anhalt , page 2365
Coordinates: 51 ° 47 ′ 55 " N , 10 ° 37 ′ 5.1" E