Observational routine at the Fair Isle Weather Station
Sea and weather conditions have been recorded in daily logs at both the North Lighthouse (until it became automatic in 1981) and the South Lighthouse, since they were commissioned in the late nineteenth century, and weather at Shirva until January 1974, when a full Auxiliary Synoptic Station began providing data at Field.
Observations are made to Meteorological Office standard and are nowadays transmitted by computer to the Meteorological Office at Bracknell. From Monday to Saturday observations are made hourly from 06-18 UTC, and also at 21 UTC and 00 UTC. On Sunday, Christmas Day and New Year's Day observations are only made three hourly from 06-00 UTC. The National Climatological Message (NCM) is completed and sent at 09 and 21 UTC each day.