Location, Location, Location – why it matters. – Iowa Climate Science Education

https://weatherobs.com/ 22/4/2025 16:00 hours

The above screen grab from weatherobs on an hourly broadcast shows that one, and only one, UK Met Office weather station was recording 18°C – and that figure in itself was the subject of a rounding down from 18.3°C. It will likely be the hottest recorded temperature of the day but, even if it is, it will not feature in the Met Office’s list of daily “extremes“. Just like the estate agents mantra that the three most important determining factors in house prices are “location, location, location” so these are the same in determining the accuracy of weather stations. Well “maybe” depending on whether the Met Office says so.

Just to the north of that 18°C reading on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, the “Marham” weather station is reading just 16°C – this site is actually RAF Marham a major UK RAF base. The site about 10 miles to the east reading just 15°C is a former RAF base (now light aircraft/gliding centre) that the Met Office calls Tibenham (formerly RAF Tibenham). Clearly the Met office have no problem using airfields for taking readings.

To the south is Brooms Barn weather station operated by Rothamsted research reading just 16°C. About 10 miles to the west are both the Class 1 Cambridge NIAB site, again reading just 16°C, though the neighbouring Cambridge airport is registering a round up to 17°C from 16.6°C.

The tiny cluster of three stations in the middle includes the “topsy turvy” weather capital of the UK at the absurd Santon Downham site but what are those two other hot spots? Well regularly “frying by the seat of their pants” in the heat in best Top Gun fashion are the air bases (variously USAF and RAF) of Lakenheath and Mildenhall.

Do not, for one second, imagine you can study the long term temperature at these sites – those are presumably state secrets and none are archived. However one thing you can be sure of is that they regularly record hotter than most and often by a long way. So why would that be? It you have ever been in the vicinity of them (notably the Centerparcs holiday village at Elveden) you will have heard the very loud and regular comings and goings of sometimes rather large (and often exceptionally large ) aircraft throughout almost each and every day. Here are typical itineraries https://www.airnavradar.com/data/airports/EGUN

In such circumstances there are likely to be frequently distorting effects to the readings on any conventional Met Office weather station. I would like to post a Google aerial view of the sites but the coordinates are deemed too secret to be supplied with any accuracy.

The point of this post is to demonstrate just how important the locations of weather stations are to their accuracy and how the absence of determining exactly where they are and what factors may be affecting them is critical. I doubt Mildenhall or Lakenheath really are the hotspots they regularly evidence (no more than is Class 5 Santon Downham ) and the Met office certainly know that demonstrated by withholding their long term data. Location really does matter even down to the last few metres for accurate representative readings.

Codicil: I drafted this post in the late afternoon of 22/4/2025 – below is the actual turn out from Met Office daily extremes for the day. The atrocious site that is Santon Downham was declared the daily extreme despite being cooler than Mildenhall.