The metereologic temple

In San Sebastian there are not many monuments made in marmol, and the most special, unique and dear of all them is the metereologic temple located at Gipuzkoa Square. This was a gift from José María Otamendi, a famous and important person from San Sebastian, famous due to his knowledge, who gifted the city with other two pieces which we will mention later.

The inscriptions

This temple has inscriptions all around its marmol column. There, we have a series of entrances that Otamedi thought would be interesting for his neighbors: the Average Atmospheric Pressure (762 mm, one more than today); how far San Sebastian is from the Ecuador; the longitud from San Sebastian to the Madrid, San Fernando and Paris meridian (back then, people still used different references to the Greenwich meridian); the average temperature in the shade at different times of the year (very different to the ones we have nowadays, due to the different ways of measurement and due to climate change); the average top temperature to the Sun (something that is not measured since the end of the 19th century); the local magnetized needle declination; the average vertical height of the water that falls in San Sebastian; Pau’s latitudes and its average temperature.

As you can see, many of this measurements are not used nowadays and have no use (specially now that we always have smartphones that give us all the information we crave and then some more). But back in the day the information this temple had was very useful for the city’s neighbors and those who came in the summer, as they were able to plan and organize while the meteorology was still on its first steps.