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A meteorological expert from Boyn Hill has been recognised for his dedication to his profession at the Royal Meteorological Society Awards (RMetS).
Dr Roger Brugge spent three decades working for the University of Reading’s Department of Meteorology and has played a key role ensuring the academic institution’s weather records are available to a wider audience.
He retired last year but continues to provide vital weather updates with the help of his own weather station.
His valuable insights include the fact that Maidenhead experienced its longest dry spell in 20 years before downpours hit the town on Sunday, June 11.
Dr Brugge has now received an award for Outstanding Contribution to The Society or Profession from the RMetS.
He said: “I was really surprised, and honoured, to receive this award from the RMetS.
“I developed an interest in the weather, and later meteorology in general, as a schoolboy running my own do-it-yourself back garden weather station in Manchester, partly inspired by a geography teacher who used to display the Daily Weather Report on his noticeboard.
“At weekends, before breakfast, I would be found listening to the trawler band and shortwave radio frequencies, gathering a variety of shipping and aerodrome weather reports from Canada to eastern Europe, to create a weather map of Europe and North America.
“Such was data gathering and map plotting before the internet.”
The expert’s work also saw him almost single-handedly digitise the entire manuscript of weather records from the University of Reading’s London Road climatological station, which operated from 1908 to 1967.
He also played a major role in the Department of Meteorology’s outreach programmes to schools and other organisations such as scout groups and astronomical societies.
Dr Brugge is well-known amongst the amateur meteorologist community, particularly in his role as voluntary editor of the monthly Climatological Observer’s Link Bulletin, a role he has fulfilled for over 20 years,
He added: “Little did I know when I first got interested in the weather, just how important the subject would become to everyone by the time I retired, after a research career in meteorology and oceanography, in 2022.”
