53.86887 -1.31879 Met Office CIMO Assessed…VARIABLE! Installed 1/1/1952 Archived temperature records from 1/1/1959. Relocated with new DCNN but NOT renamed 1/1/2005.
Bramham weather station lies on the site of the former Bramham Moor Aerodrome also once known as RAF Tadcaster. The site is now home to the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) Headley Hall who operates a number of other research sites around the UK notably at Cambridge and East Malling. Bramham also has an equally questionable historic record.
Firstly the current weather station sits in open country – I deliberately wide angled the headline image to demonstrate the absence of any roads or buildings within 200 metres of the site. The only real issue here may be the artificial nature of the changing landscape in experimental fields, however, I feel that level of criticism here is potentially just nit picking. This should be a Class 1 site. The Met Office also agreed with that evaluation in their listings I received under Freedom of Information Act for years 2021,2022, 2023 and the (previously) most recent one I published in 2024. However, in reviewing NIAB’s East Malling site I became concerned at the ongoing accuracy of Met Office CIMO assessments and questioned their evaluation supplying aerial imagery displaying recent site compromising issues…..more later on that point. I also requested an up to date 2025 CIMO assessment list which produced some surprising alterations.
I am currently analysing the changes and will publish the new full list shortly – {providing the Met Office don’t slap a “D” notice on me!} , in the interim , here is the current Bramham Listing {I am sharing a view of my laptop with readers.}
Out of the blue, Bramham has dropped from a pristine Class 1 to the lowest classification for which there are actually qualifying parameters of Class 4 and a stated additional inaccuracy due to siting of 2°C. – Why?
It becomes increasingly more difficult to understand the Met Office’s logic when considered in conjunction with their response to my recent querying of the NIAB East Malling site. I enquired as follows and included the fully referenced image:
“The above weather station is shown as CIMO Class 1 for temperature and humidity as per the recent listing supplied to me by the Met Office. Can you please advise whether this classification is still correct given the obvious encroachment of poly tunnels on the site.
The subsequent reply was typical of the manner in which they respond:
“Dear Mr Sanders
We can confirm that East Malling weather station was assessed as CIMO class 1 for temperature and humidity on its most recent inspection. This is in keeping with the guidance set out in Annex 1.D of the WMO guide to instruments and methods of observation – volume 1. Please see the link below for further details.
https://library.wmo.int/records/item/41650-guide-to-instruments-and-methods-of-observation
Kind regards,
Weather Desk”
Translating the above into plain English, “”We have no interest in your observations of facts and we are always correct because we say so”. A response that comes across as somewhat arrogantly stupid.
I will now enquire quite why the Met Office feels Bramham has suddenly (and presumably irretrievably or something would surely be done to correct matters) become far worse than the risible Class 3 Heathrow site. I will advise of the response I get but I do not expect it to be any more coherent
I would also add I deliberately included Braemar in the above latest CIMO extract as it has now been downgraded from Class 3 to class 4 – is that similarly now much worse than Heathrow? I personally considered it Class 2.
Further consideration of Bramham also displays a “creative ” site history. The site has had two separate District County Network Numbers (DCNN) but only one historic name. This is quite unusual for Met office stations generally – but not for NIAB sites. Normally when sites are relocated only a short distance not significantly altering the area climatologically then no renumbering nor renaming is deemed necessary. However, ” where the exposure at the new site is sufficiently different that a detectable impact on the measured climatology is judged likely, it is appropriate that observations from the new site are labelled by a different set of identifiers.”
The Bramham site was relocated in 2004. The new DCNN number (changing from 4076 to 4077) indicates the change requirement due to significant site alterations but no readily noticeable name alteration nor addition (i.e. “Number 2”) was actually made. I am very confident that when mathematical analysts (not meteorologists) apply their “skills” to interpreting readings (no more than bald numbers on a page/screen) that they are almost certainly unaware that they are actually, metaphorically speaking, comparing apples with oranges. In both my reviews of Cambridge NIAB and East Malling I demonstrated unadvised relocations. Which normal data analysts (“climate scientists”) would question the veracity of numbers put in front of them when supplied by perceived reliable “Authority”?
The scale of the move is visible from identifying the original location indicated at (under “Remarks”) Easting 44100, Northing 441200. A fraction shy of 900 metres from a roadside is not an inconsiderable alteration.
In summary, for reasons currently known only to the Met Office, the formerly pristine Bramham site has been relegated to “junk” status with no explanation nor apparent reasoning. It has been surreptitiously relocated potentially rendering historic comparisons dubious. The Met Office displays arrogant disregard for factual evidence and displays its data in yet more misleading ways. The current Bramham site is almost certainly a good indicator of any recent changes in average temperature but likley only has a reliable 20 year record.
On the basis of all the above I, for one, would certainly not endorse any radical changes to our lifestyles, economy or drastic changes to our former traditional energy industry based on data supplied by the Met Office.
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February 16, 2025 at 08:49AM
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