The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) is one of the most important climate monitoring networks in the world. It is co-sponsored by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and numerous UN, EU and scientific bodies and its collects information that is used for scientific research within the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Ultimately, it forms the basis for promoting and implementing global Net Zero plans. Given its importance and the need to keep to the highest standards of scientific reporting, it is a surprise that the UK Met Office seems to take its temperature reporting duties rather lightly. It provides information from eight sites, four of which are rated junk class 4 with international ‘uncertainties’ of 2°C. Barely beyond belief, another site is based slap bang in the middle of RAF Shawbury, where pilots in military helicopters make frequently low fly-pasts at all hours of the day and night.
The picture above is taken at the air base, the main RAF helicopter training centre, and it shows a helicopter next to the white Stevenson box containing the measuring device. Other clips – you couldn’t make it up – show helicopters hovering over the screen.
The image is captured from a YouTube video which shows extensive traffic at the base in close proximity to the temperature measuring station. Again we are obliged to citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders who is undertaking a forensic examination of the entire Met Office’s UK temperature station network. Sanders notes that the heat hazes from the engines and the powerful down-draughts from the rotors are clearly visible. He concludes that despite the site being one of the Met Office’s most important locations, it is “completely worthless” for climate reporting. Despite this being a ‘flagship’ site, it is said to demonstrate the “poor standards and total lack of supervision thar the Met Office is being allowed to operate to”. In fact, not only is Shawbury a key location feeding information to international bodies promoting the Net Zero fantasy, it is also one of only 37 UK station in the Met Office’s historical database. In the case of Shawbury it shows measurements stretching back to 1946.
The GCOS takes itself very seriously, noting that it supports research towards improved understanding, modelling and prediction of the climate system. Perhaps the resulting predictions might carry more weight if a little more attention was paid to the data put into the models. When it is not inventing data from 103 non-existent stations, the Met Office is doing little to improve the quality of its operations with nearly 80% of its actual sites in junk classes 4 and 5, with uncertainty warnings of 2°C and 5°C respectively.
The eight UK stations contributing to the GCOS are Stornoway, Waddington, Lerwick, Eskdalemuir, Aldergrove, Camborne, Shawbury and Rothamsted. The first four sites are class 4, with Stornoway airport attracting recent interest because the Met Office claimed to have continuous recordings there since 1873. All very remarkable since manned powered flight was not achieved until 1903, while the actual airport was not built until 1937.
Eskdalemuir was recently awarded Centennial Observing Station status by the WMO for providing “long-term, high-quality climate records that tell current and future generations about climate variability and trends”. Since Eskdalemuir is a junk class 4 site on WMO’s own CIMO rating system, it might be asked how such praise can be lavished on this corrupted site. “Does the WMO not know this is such a poorly rated site because the Met Office did not tell it? After all, the CIMO classifications of sites are not freely available in the public arena,” writes Sanders. Both the Daily Sceptic and Ray Sanders have obtained the listings via freedom of information requests. Waddington, another RAF airbase, attracted some interest recently when it was found to have declared a ‘record’ 40.3°C on July 19th 2022. This of course was identical to the temperature recorded by the runway at nearby RAF Coningsby as three typhoon jets were attempting to land. The record was declared ‘suspect’ by the Met Office due to an application of ground weedkiller, but this didn’t stop the improbable figure later being recorded in the archive run by the Centre for Environmental Data Analysis.
However, it is heartening to report the sight of Rothamsted in the GCOS listing. Sanders is full of praise for this site which also has a WMO Centennial Station award. In fact Sanders considers that it is possibly the Met Office’s finest station, “against which others should be judged”. Sanders makes a start on this work by comparing two temperatures recorded on the afternoon of July 19th 2022 when a heatwave struck over a wide area of southern and eastern England. Coningsby ran up its runway high, a record the Met Office later described as a milestone in climate history. Rothamsted registered a markedly lower 38.5°C. In 2019, a temperature of 38.7°C was declared at the class 5 site in Cambridge Botanical Gardens, while Rothamsted, about 45 miles away, displayed only 36°C.
The Met Office has a few good recording sites but most of the network is very poor and recent highs seem to be two-a-penny with every passing jet or helicopter breeze. Quite why the GCOS should be stuffed with recordings from very poor sites is a question the Met Office needs to answer. When the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stands up and declares that global boiling has arrived, we should at least be able to be confident that he is quoting from correct figures and knows what he is talking about.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
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“Given its importance and the need to keep to the highest standards of scientific reporting, it is a surprise that the UK Met Office seems to take its temperature reporting duties rather lightly. It provides information from eight sites, four of which are rated junk class 4 with international ‘uncertainties’ of 2°C”.
No surprise to many. They have active climate activists in the Met Office, a whole section devoted to Climate Change and put out quite frequent alarmist videos with the old Co2 attribution numbers. Like a few days ago, even stating the RTP 8.5 scenario as simply the highest one and not saying it has been dismissed by almost all scientists. It just keeps stating the same thing over and over again w some linear modeling graphs for the uninformed public and stated as science.
https://youtu.be/TsaF8P2j0vs?si=BkunAdcxkvjaLeY4
Talk w climate scientist starts at 21:46m
Is there some law against writing the word “with” nowadays? Just asking for a f.
I think its because people have gotten used to sending t m on their p’s.
RAF Shawbury seems to be a fairly busy base.
It hosts:
60 Squadron
670 Squadron Army Air Corp
No 1 Flying Training School
Defence College of Air and Space Operations
Battlespace Management Standards and Evaluation
School of Aerospace Battle Management
705 Naval Air Squadron
Central Helicopter Flying School
Aircraft Maintenance and Storage Unit
Central Flying School
https://www.raf.mod.uk/our-organisation/stations/raf-shawbury/
Naturally, to find out anything meaningful, the RAF isn’t the place to go. Wiki has this on the storage:
“Several RAF aircraft types are stored in long-term reserve at RAF Shawbury. These aircraft are stored in four specially de-humidified hangars at different states of readiness and can be brought back into active service if required. Other aircraft types which are no longer required for operational service are also stored pending their disposal. The unit is operated by FB Heliservices”
So, there’s a lot of activity and that no doubt has an effect all its own. One would have thought the Met Office would be keen to spruce up its dilapidated joke weather stations…
“To ensure consistency of measurements in the records, weather stations must meet strict criteria, in alignment with meteorological organisations across the world. This includes specific standards on the levels of grass-cover within the observations area, as well as having enough clear space for the weather station to be free from the influence of non-meteorological factors on the readings.”
https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/how-forecasts-are-made/observations/weather-stations
There is no plan, no programme, not even any intent to improve anything..
I can only conclude that the Met Office is a very expensive political tool – one they are not going to change; save for the occasional new supercomputer.
I notice that BBC weather have been making a big deal about yesterday been the hottest start to May on record, with the temperature hitting 29.3C in London (l recorded 25C here in Scunthorpe). Trying to give the impression that this is the earliest time in the year for such highs to be reached.
A utterly wrong impression to be giving, due to the fact that while this temperature of 29.3C may have been the warmest May 1st. They have glossed over the fact that this temperature has been beaten by the hottest day on record during April.
Where the temperature reached 29.4C on April 16th 1949.
If it hit 29C yesterday in London it wasn’t in the part I live in. It was 25C at most.
If the results of my studies are anything to go by.
Then the true shade temperatures in London would have been around 27C if a electronic thermometer in a Stevenson screen had recorded 29.3C in yesterday’s weather conditions.
No, it was 25C
Anything else is gaslighting.
Go on then taxed, describe you cod scientific experiments.
All the controls you employed, all the equipment in the same location, housed/operated to met office standards using the same smoothing algorithm/sampling rate.
You claim the met office is always hotter than your records, yet every time you post them I show you local stations colder and warmer than you.
Leconfield was 1.2C cooler mean for April than your mean you posted recently.
All your experiments show is that the temperature isn’t the same in different places, earth shattering!
There was a 10C+ difference in less than 400 yards where I was this morning, down to a coastal mist.
“met office standards” appear to be a very low bar.
You make a number of point’s that l will answer.
The reason l set up my experiment was because l had doubts about the maximum temps the Met Office were claiming.
My experiment has shown me l was right to have such doubts.
The reason l have used a LIG thermometer in open shade was because l wanted to obtain a true record of the shade temperature and not just recording the air temperature of the inside of a Stevenson screen that has had the sun shining on it for several hours. As l believe the use of a Stevenson screen for recording shade temperatures has become outdated and rather ineffective thanks to modern electronic temperature recording.
My location is in the middle of a urban centre, where the UHI effect has a impact on the minimum temperatures l record.
So its no surprise that some local rural locations record lower mean temps then where l do. I just simply post the data l have recorded.
I have based my estimate on the comparing of the temperatures recorded by my thermometer and the local weather stations during different weather conditions.
It was 29.5C in the shade yesterday in the South West, outside my bathroom, according to my thermometer. It doesn’t mean anything though, because it isn’t ‘climate change’ causing it, nor CO2, nor ‘catastrophic man-made global warming’, it’s a jet stream pushing hot air North from Africa (or somewhere South of the U.K.)
“It’s the hottest day of the year!”
Two days later. “It’s the hottest day of the year!”.
A week later. “Prepare for the hottest day of the year!”
It’s just laughable. What sort of moron doesn’t understand that the year starts in WINTER, and therefore there are going to be scores of ‘hottest days of the year’, until we reach the peak of the Summer, and then the days will get colder.
It would only be possible to have endless “Coldest day of the year” if the year started in July or August, and gradually became cooler.
Yet still the idiot ‘journalists’ keep using this hackneyed and tired phrase, over and over, for the sheep.
Maybe it’s different in the Southern Hemisphere?
Come on, Nick. Please tell us why this site is perfectly valid, and should be a poster-child for CAGW alarm!
This is either rank ignorance, or deliberate lying. When you bring up this airfield in Google Maps or Earth, the ONLY position this camera could be at is 3700 feet from the place where these helicopters are hovering over the ramp. And the location of the weather station is 1400 feet from the ramp, between the ramp and the camera. So no helicopters are hovering over the weather station.
In addition, several of the shots in the video are showing navigation antennae, not the Stevenson Screen. But the main point is this is a VERY long lens hence the flat picture distorts relative distances.
Furthermore, the downwash from the main rotor blades is several orders of magnitude more air than the turbine engine exhaust. Having been in the downwash of real helicopters, I can attest you do not feet heat from the engine exhaust, in fact all you get is dust and a rather cool blast of air as it acts as a wind chill factor.
But most importantly, weather stations at airports are essential safety measures for aviation. You must know the actual air conditions to set/calibrate critical safety instruments like the altimeter, and must know the actual air conditions regards temperature, dewpoint and pressure for safe take off and landing.
The co located weather stations at airports are fit for this critical aviation safety purpose. They are NOT suited for general weather or climate purpose, as airports generally have large concrete areas and generally read a few degrees higher than surrounding areas. But knowing the exact conditions on runways is imperative for aviation safety.
There *is* heat generated from the turbines. Where does the air flow from the rotors spread the heat to? You may not feel it directly underneath the aircraft but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t push the heat to a measuring station some distance away. UHI doesn’t go straight up, horizontal winds can spread it downwind along the surface for literally miles.
First off I did not say there is no heat from the turbine exhaust. What I said was the rotor down wash is orders of magnitude higher than the exhaust volume. Here are some actual numbers for a similar sized helicopter with a 650 shaft horsepower turbine engine, 5400 lbs gross weight and a 45 foot diameter main rotor diameter:
At hover, the main rotor is delivering a downwash of 42,462 cubic feet per SECOND of air flow. The engine is producing a mere 529 cubic feet per second of hot gas exhaust. There is no physics I know of where this mismatch in volume flow rates will deliver anything but a mere fraction of a degree temperature increase above ambient, at a minimum of 20-30 feet from the engine exhaust in hover.
Do we see the heat bloom from the engine exhaust in the video? Yes. Do we know the ambient temperature of that day’s filming? No. How much of a temperature difference is needed to see a distortion in the light passing through the warmer region? How far away from the engine exhaust nozzle can the distortion be seen? A mere few degree difference can cause image distortion.
Do an experiment. Blow on the palm of your hand, with the hand close to your mouth and smoothly move the hand out to the arm’s extent. At what distance from your mouth do you cease to feel the heat from your breath? This is only with a small fraction of the air leaving your lips entraining surrounding air and cooling off and my test puts this cool off distance at about 6 inches, where my breath is at least 22 deg F warmer than ambient air. Now transpose this empirical evidence to an engine exhaust with forced mixing at a ratio of 80 times more cool air moving at 38 ft/sec.
UHI is irrelevant as the weather station is there for aviation safety, not for general weather or climate purposes. And I have stood behind a hovering Chinook helicopter, about 100 feet aft of the rear where the two engine exhausts are located, with a combine power of 11,000 HP and you could not detect any increase in the downwash temperature. That downwash was most substantial, kicking up dust and you needed to lean forward to not get blown over by the wash.
I’ve said it many times, using airport weather data for climate purposes is wrong. But airport weather stations are critical safety measures for aviation so they are properly sited for their intended purpose. What I abhor is persons making unfounded claims, such as here. Those helicopters were NOT hovering over the weather station, the camera had a long lens, and was 3700 feet from the area of the hovering, while the weather station was midway between camera and helicopters. And even if they were over the weather station, that is irrelevant as the downwash cools off the exhaust with at least 80 times more airflow than exhaust flow.
Correct, particularly about the distortion of perspective by the zoom lens! I flew at Shawbury in the mid-60s.
“exact” is a bit of an exaggeration. If the pilot knows the data to +/- 2-3%, everything will be OK. That is not “exact”, but it is certainly good enough.
I can find you dozens upon dozens of fatal aviation accidents because pilots failed to heed density altitude in their aviation decision making. And density altitude issues can take you out of the safe flying envelope with a few degree error. So your comment is mis or un informed.
“This is either rank ignorance, or deliberate lying” Gosh rather strong language. The original source article is here https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/27/shawbury-wmo-03414-what-credibility-can-possibly-be-given-to-this-weather-station/
That chap who wrote the article is a jolly nice and well informed fellow. I believe he actually visited the site in person and knows rather a lot about the subject.
“The eight UK stations contributing to the GCOS are Stornoway, Waddington, Lerwick, Eskdalemuir, Aldergrove, Camborne, Shawbury and Rothamsted.”
Is that correct? This document only shows 6 UK stations, none of which are Shawbury.
https://gcos.dwd.de/DWD-GCOS/DE/nationalebeitraege/dienstleistungenfuergcos/zentrenqualitaetssicherung/gsmnc/gsnmc_messnetze/gsn_stations_list_pdf.pdf?__blob=publicationFile&v=8
And the map on this site doesn’t include Shawbury.
https://gcos.wmo.int/site/global-climate-observing-system-gcos/networks/aopc-situ/gcos-surface-network-gsn
It doesn’t include all the imaginary stations, either.
I can’t help you with your imagination.
Who needs your help? Not me.
Met Office Shock: More Non-Existent UK Weather Stations Discovered Reporting Invented Datahttps://dailysceptic.org/2025/04/09/met-office-shock-more-non-existent-uk-weather-stations-discovered-reporting-invented-data/
What do you do for an encore?
So you’ve no evidence that Shawbury is used by GCOS. Thanks for making that clear.
So you swerve on your ignorance. Or is that complicity?
I’d say the latter.
Just keep up these childish insults whilst providing zero evidence that Shawbury is currently used by GCOS. It’s such a convincing argument.
I can see the truth hurts.
I get the distinct impression that “Bellman” does not want to enter into sensible debate. I have supplied him the authoritative link so let’s see if he apologises. I included it here
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/eskdalemuir-wmo-03162-one-of-the-uks-flagship-premium-quality-sites/
https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/guides/observations/uk-observations-network
Shawbury appears in the Met Office map along with this statement (my bold):
These are the main land surface observing stations over the UK, but they are not the only ones. There are in addition supplementary stations which provide a more limited range of data to meet specific requirements, for example climate requirements, measurements of temperature and/or wind at a customer’s site, and a dense rainfall network to aid water management and flood forecasting.
I am somewhat confused why you feel the need to get so angry. Here is a link to the list of the 8 stations from the UK Met Office. I trust you will believe them.
https://weatherobservationswebsite.blogspot.com/2019/08/eskdalemuir-observatory-centennial.html
Perhaps you should start studying the work of the author of the source articles that Chris Morrison refers to in his articles.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/eskdalemuir-wmo-03162-one-of-the-uks-flagship-premium-quality-sites/
That Ray Sanders chap really is rather well informed.
What makes you think I’m angry? I just think it would be better if people kept to the facts rather than resorting to insults.
I know what the WOW blog says. We were discussing it 3 days ago. I conceded that I was confused by the difference between a station being part of the GCOS but not part of the GCOS Surface Network.
“B..b..b..but the stations!”
Time has past you people by, and you haven’t even realized it yet.
What a shame.
Oh I’ve realised it. Facts are now irrelevant. The only truth now is what is convient for you.
Alarmism is a mental derangement. Why not get professional help?
Thanks for proving my point. Why bother with facts when a witty insult will make you feel better.
Your point?
Accepting invented data from imaginary stations sums you lot up: religious loons.
The point I was making in response to Operator. Please try to keep up.
Calm down now. no need to get so upset – I have given you the link upthread so just admit you were wrong and that will be the end of it.
“has PASSED you people by”…
Looking at this a bit more, I think my confusion is between the GSN and GCSO. Shawbury is probably part of the GCSO, but not the GSN.
Bellman, your link does show 6 locations in GCOS.
The link provided in the article shows 8:
https://weatherobservationswebsite.blogspot.com/2019/08/
“The observatory is also part of the Global Climate Observing System(GCOS); one of only 8 observing stations in the UK incorporated into this important climate monitoring network (Stornoway, Aldergrove, Waddington, Rothamsted, Camborne, Lerwick, Eskdalemuir and Shawbury are all classed as GCOS surface network stations).”
However, I can’t find where the information in the article comes from.
I haven’t found ANY other reference to Shawbury as a GCOS station.
As I said, I think it’s the distinction between being a GCOs station, and being part of the GSN.
As I understand itthe GSN is the minimal subset of stations needed for global observations. I assumed this was what the article meant by “Ultimately, it forms the basis for promoting and implementing global Net Zero plans.”
GSN is the Surface subset of GCOS. Shawbury RAF has to be in GSN to be part of GCOS.
https://gcos.wmo.int/site/global-climate-observing-system-gcos/networks/aopc-situ/gcos-surface-network-gsn
if Shawbury RAF is not in GCOS, the entire article is based on a falsehood
“Shawbury RAF has to be in GSN to be part of GCOS.”
I think you’ve got that the wrong way round. GSN is a subset of GCO~S so you have to be in GCOS to be in GSN.
“if Shawbury RAF is not in GCOS, the entire article is based on a falsehood”
It is in GCOS. But there are still many falsehoods.
I believe I am correct, GSN is the database of stations used in GCOS, but it doesn’t matter.
Where does it show that RAF Shawbury (not Shawbury RAF as I was using) is in GCOS?
“Where does it show that RAF Shawbury (not Shawbury RAF as I was using) is in GCOS?”
I was going by the blog post mentioned in this article:
https://weatherobservationswebsite.blogspot.com/2019/08/
But that is from 5 years ago, so it’s possible a couple of stations were dropped.
As to the relationship between GCOS and GSN, I’m not really sure. There are far to many acronyms and documents flying around. I’d read it as meaning that there were GCOS approved stations, and then subset of them had been chosen to be the GSN. But I could easily be holding the wrong end of the stick.
From the Met Office website
The map shows the current network of automatic (synoptic) and manual (climate) stations covering the UK.
UK weather stations report a mixture of snapshot hourly observations of the weather known as synoptic observations, and daily summaries of the weather known as climate observations.
In the list of stations
Shap England 54.502, -2.683 Automatic
Shawbury England 52.794, -2.663 Automatic
Sheffield England 53.381, -1.49 Automatic
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-synoptic-and-climate-stations
Recent studies have shown that a large proportion of the Met weather stations are in a parlous condition and are mostly totally unfit for purpose of temperature measurements over time.
It is a true indictment of the ineptitude of the Met office to allow its stations to get into this decrepit unusable state…
.. and a true indictment of their deceit that they still use them.
Here is the original article written by a jolly nice fellow who took the trouble to include the link to the Met Office website detailing the 8 stations.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/27/shawbury-wmo-03414-what-credibility-can-possibly-be-given-to-this-weather-station/
Friday funny
Reform UK gets huge 17% swing in Runcorn and wins the seat. Starmer’s reaction?
we get it. We were elected in last year to bring about change. That’s what people desperately want. We started that work… But the message from these results, I think, is go further, go faster. That chimes with what I want to do. And that’s what I take out of this.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/watch-starmer-admits-runcorn-loss-disappointing/
Lol lol Labour
I’m betting that Labour will come 5th in the number of seats won. Just pipped for 4th place by The Greens.
I’m not sure what the end goal is for exposing the MO’s shortcomings, and I’m sure there are many.
It won’t alter the fact that the UK climate has warmed remarkably in my lifetime.
It depends how old you are, I was born in 1944 and I have experianced many hot summers and very cold winters, 1976 was by far the warmest summer on record and 1959 was the longest warm dry spring, summer and autumn on record. Overall, urban temperature are warmer, both by day a
night, so it is very difficult to compare todays temperatures with the past..
Yes I’m a youngster from 1950, as you say some hot summers and cold winters.
All I can say is that my mother born 1911 used to complain that summers weren’t as warm as the ones she remember from the 1930s and 1947 was a colder winter than 1963. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing.
For my own part I’m quite happy if things get a bit warmer than they are now.
And yet there is actual evidence that the Earth was warmer in the 30’s.
“the UK climate has warmed remarkably in my lifetime”
An intriguing claim, and one that we can fact-check easily enough. Here is the UK CET record of daily Tmax, from GHCN (station id UK000000000) (unadjusted, as far as I can tell), in tenths of a degree C, since 1880. How long is your lifetime, how much warmer is “remarkably”, and which part of this chart would you like to draw our attention to in support of your statement?
If you refer to the Surface Stations Project on Tallblokes Talkshop the ultimate objective is stated. To select appropriately accurate weather stations to reconstruct a more accurate historic national temperature record from raw and unadulterated data. The extent of any UK climate warming over a long timeframe does appear, on first passes done so far, to be significantly exaggerated.
I think England lacks sufficient air conditioning compressors to bias weather reporting stations?
We make up for that by using electricity substations instead. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/01/14/bingley-no2-wmo-03344-how-hot-is-it-oh-over-3-metres/
Here we go again with sceptics’ fetish with aircraft being *close* to the airfield stevenson screen.
First, measured on Google maps it is 210ft/70yds away from the closest Helipad area.
Second, the PRIMARY purpose of temp readings at airfields is to provide pilots with readings for aircraft safety. There is no way that the RAF would allow that to be compromised. As I’ve said before on here during many years serving as a Met O on RAF airfields I never experienced an incident of readings being compromised by engine exhaust. I there had been the there would have been an inquiry and likely a bollocking for the pilot concerned …. as the enclosure is sited far enough away to prevent that happening.
Thirdly: Hot air rises – even if forced down by a heli rotor it will quickly rise again and/or mix with the ambient airmass.
Also, the enduring myth if the magic Typhoons at RAF Coningsby rears it’s head once more. Fascinating how the ideologically motivated can think that *3* Typhoon jets can take 2 hours to plague the stevenson screen on that UK record Max day….. that was among very many stations that surpassed the previous record max – 2 of which were just 0.1C behind.
Yes, outside air temperature on the runways is important to the operation of the aircraft. But it need not, and isn’t accurate to 0.01 C. It isn’t accurate to .1C. 1C is good enough.
(I am an aerospace engineer having worked on development of rotary-wing, fixed-wing subsonic and supersonic aircraft, and a launch vehicle and spacecraft. Over 40 years experience.
UHI effects have been measured as far as 30miles downwind from even small towns. Rotor blast creates a local temperature inversion where the horizontal velocity of the air inhibits the rise of warm air for some distance.
when you are measuring differences in the units digit it doesn’t take much to create a systematic bias and measurements to the hundredths digit become unusable.
Anthony I note you claim to be a former Met Office employee. If so you are not a great advert. The requirements of aviation instrumentation is vastly more stringent than those of the Met Office. Most aviation sites do NOT refer to the Met Office data as detailed here. https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/04/heathrow-airport-wmo-03772-the-common-knowledge-that-the-met-office-doesnt-want-you-to-know-and-why-this-site-is-complete-junk/
Perhaps regarding the map you have given you might like to look up the archived figure for Waddington BUT beware the whole subject is being dealt with under Freedom of Information request – you wouldn’t want to speak out of turn eh?
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/03/17/waddington-wmo-03377-an-update-spotting-dubious-data/comment-page-1/
By the way Anthony whilst you are looking up archives, have a squint at Floors Caste.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/charterhall-wmo-03158-scotlands-all-time-high-or-an-intriguing-cover-up/
You may be astonished to discover there are moles everywhere.
“The Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) is one of the most important climate monitoring networks in the world.”
The world – that sounds like a big job.
“It provides information from eight sites”
Oh, never mind.
That looks like a bank of air conditioners framing the helicopter in the background?
At the risk of a bit of self promotion, I am at about 225 reviews/posts on UK weather stations that Chris is referring to. either go to the Surface Stations Project banner for the Index or you can plough through my author archive.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/author/raymsanders1956/