Hi Shirtie ,

The roadside stations are for highway maintenance, in respect of checking
for icy conditions, as well for wind speed checks on important routes. The
stations accompany sensors in the road tarmac, measuring road surface
temperatures, salt levels and moisture so that councils's highway department
know whether to add salt on to the roads. They also have knowledge of likely
conditions along the road having done "thermal mapping" surveys previously,
so they should know of any frost pockets in the area. The aim is to use just
enough road salt as is required, and to have an idea whether a road might
need re-salting after rain etc.

Most counties have them in the UK. A lot of this work was pioneered by Dr.
John Thornes of Birmingham University.

Dorian


"Shirtie" wrote in message
...
Recently when driving around I've noticed what appear to be weather
stations
positioned by the side of roads. Trouble is you see one then you start
noticing them all over the place !!!

They are all on poles about 10 ft high, look to be solar powered, and have
various instruments on. These are presumably for measuring wind strength,
direction, temperature, etc. From what I can see they aren't the air
quality
measuring stations that are also cropping up.

I've noted them on the M4 (betwen Reading and Newbury) , M4 spur road to
Heathrow, A22 Godstone, Surrey.

Hopefully someone will be able to enlighten me as to what they are used
for
and who they belong to.

Thanks