Porthmadog
July 5, 2023
By Paul Homewood
As requested, I am publishing the letter to me from the Met Office, concerning Porthmadog weather station:
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“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. – J Robert Oppenheimer.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Never in the wrong, probably, but they owe it to you and us to report results of the next inspection, which should be impartial.
I wonder what the ‘…specific customer reason to keep the site open’ can be. I read that as; having been found out they will fall back on this catch-all excuse.
Hopeless formulaic response. One wonders what sort of training or even conventional education the Team has received. Lazy, evasive and way below what a public service should provide. For all that it was someone in a senior position who would have approved the entire text.
Their goal is records and they will use any means in their gift to achieve that and that includes sleight of hand. They will use and use unsuitable sites until they are challenged and only under duress will they stop using them. Then comes the next battle to get them to remove those stations from the history which they will fight tooth and nail. Their job is not the business of recording weather parameters but seeking records on behalf of the climate wing of their political masters.
The Met Office response does not address the questions put by Paul. In fact it answers a different question, “what is the Met Office policy for monitoring stations?” – which is nonsensical.
Exactly. How hard is it state “the Porthmadog site was last inspected in (date). There was a line of trees at a distance of (x m) to the East and a height of (x m). These conditions are/are not compliant with WMO standards. The next inspection is (date).” And take it from there.
That is not a reply. It is merely an assertion that they have done nothing wrong – as in “there were no parties in Number 10 the experts have confirmed”
The Met Office obviously use the same template as the BBC when addressing enquiries
So what is the set interval and when is the next one due? Is it the same set interval for all weather stations? Goodness me, you wouldn’t think that this is a publicly funded organisation that should be transparent in it’s workings would you?
It looks like you need a can opener to prise information out of them.
Mike see my comment below, the Met Office badly site stations by their own regional offices!
Prediction: once the trees are cut back, Porthmadog won’t be the hottest place in Wales/UK for a couple of years.
Okay the Met Office monitors stations on a periodic basis. Look at this one in Sussex (nowhere near an airfield) but it is directly next to a building so clearly not acceptable.
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Herstmonceux,+Hailsham/@50.8909853,0.3164231,103m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x47df6c488f755b6d:0x4fcae5690266082b!8m2!3d50.889301!4d0.322373!16zL20vMDV5and2?entry=ttu
But it was not there in the past, it was in the middle of the site. So who moved it and why is it now so needlessly badly sited?
Well this is whose regional offices are in those adjacent buildings seen from street view.
https://www.google.com/maps/@50.8915859,0.3168535,3a,15y,246.39h,86.47t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sRUw4oQ5HITBFZeEcE0cC_A!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu
So yep the Met Office themselves manipulate sites at their own regional offices.
From the original picture posted it does not look like the trees will make a difference to the recorded temperatures. If the Stevenson screen were to be moved another 20m away from the trees, the temperatures measured are still going to be within a few thousandths of a degree. For 6 months of the year the trees will be without leaf and even less of an interference.
With a rural setting such as this, there is going to be little to no UHI effect compared to other sites which would fit into a higher category.
And if the site were shut down, and the records scrapped, there would still be another site that would give a record temperature now and again.
I really do not see what all the fuss is about.
I would imagine that a site like Heathrow gets a high grading as a site. If it records a record temperature, do we ever hear that the UHI effect has increased by 1C since the 1960s? Is this ever mentioned in a report? Surely that is something to really complain about.
It is not about opinion.
The rules were set by the WMO, don’t you believe in sticking to the rules?
Clearly Paul Weldon either thinks rules are meant to be broken or that he knows more than those who originally set them.
Nowhere have I suggested the rules be broken. Neither has the met. office broken the rules, they have assessed the site and given it the correct quality rating.
I have given an opinion, based on both theory and experience. I have both. Can you not see the irony that according to the rules, a site that gives rise to a high UHI has a better classification than one that has no UHI? Surely this is an important topic that suggests a change in the rules would be for the better and at least needs discussing? Or is it more important to just try and shut down an argument that is against ones personal opinion?
Ray, you have been looking at various sites, can you honestly say that the site at Porthmadoc is one of the worst? As for my experience in the matter, a BSc in environmental science, 50+ years of working outside in often extreme conditions, and the monitoring over the last 15 years of local variation in temperature on my smallholding. It does not make me a specialist, but I do know what I am talking about. Most important for me is to adhere to the results of my investigations, whatever side of the debate they may fall. It is a tragedy that the facts are often distorted in order to fall into line with a preconceived ideal.
What a shame that by raising a point of difference leads to such comments.
Dismal autumnal weather here in the South West of Ireland for the last week or so. Yet the predicted highs for tomorrow of 16°C were lit up with an angry orange colour on the weather map on the evening weather forecast by RTE/Met Eireann this evening!!