Elmstone DCNN 5386 DCNN 5387 – An example of the very many good but lost weather stations.

DCNN 5387 51.29930 1.24678 My estimate – CIMO Class 1 Installed 1/1/1972 CLOSED 31/12/1994 Image December 1990 Courtesy Google Earth Pro.

DCNN 5386 51.29841 1.232150 My Estimate – CIMO Class 1 Installed 1/1/1938 CLOSED 31/12/1972 Image December 1960 Courtesy Google Earth Pro.

Elmstone and its relocated site Elmstone No 2 were former Met Office manual sites in Kent with a local record breaking history. They are typical of the literally hundreds of well sited, good quality sites that have disappeared over recent decades. I contend the loss of such sites and the advent of new poorly sited (mostly urban) stations is distorting the UK historic climate record.

On the 30th January 1947 Elmstone recorded the coldest ever temperature in modern times in the county of Kent at MINUS 21.3°C – extremely cold by any standards. Neither of the weather station sites were in frost hollows being situated in a flat open and high agricultural value landscape locally known as the “Ash Levels” named after the nearby village of Ash. They did both, however, regularly record significantly cooler temperatures than urban environments.

A Kent based amateur meteorologist known as “Meopham Weather” has five weather stations in Kent and interestingly appears to be keener on cold records than hot ones. He publishes several meteorological You Tube videos including the one below of his journey to identify the historic Elmstone sites – a useful reference showing the localities of the stations.

Assessing the sites to the CIMO standards, both were over 100 metres from any artificial heat sources, on flat land with no shading problems and in open countryside fully representative of the area for many miles around. Perfection is likely close to impossible in the highly varied and developed nature of south east England but these sites were likely as good as it gets – on a par with Rothamsted.

Investigating the closure of Elmstone uncovered interesting numbers in the history of weather sites in Kent. Going back to archives of 150 years ago i.e 1874, I was able to locate 12 simultaneously operating official weather stations in the county. 50 years later in 1924 this number had increased to a total of 18 stations. By 50 years ago, in 1974, there were 32 simultaneously operating official Met Office weather stations.

Now in 2024 there are just 7 reporting Met Office Stations in Kent. This reduced number of sites over recent decades is reflected throughout the UK……Why?

Starting in the late 1970’s, the move to automating site readings to get real time information required changing thermometers from traditional visually read liquid-in-glass thermometers to electrically operated Platinum Resistance Thermometers . This in turn required weather stations to have a reliable electricity supply and data communications equipment. In the early days (and even now) these services were frequently not available or practical to provide in rural sites like Elmstone. Ultimately such sites were closed in favour of those able to offer such services i.e airfields, water and sewage works, botanic gardens, coastguard stations, urban areas etc so currently dominating today’s selection. {Issues regarding this change of recording device will be the subject of a separate post}

Of the over 25 closed Kent weather stations in the last 50 years, identified longstanding rural sites at Anvil Green, Charing, Dover/RMS Guston, Dungeness, Elmstone, Eynsford, Hadlow, Northdown, Peckham (Kent), St Margarets, Throwley, Tunstall,  Ulcombe,  West Malling and Wye were all in locations that would probably rank as CIMO Class 1 or 2 quality. In lieu of some of these the Met Office has seen fit to introduce sites such as Frittenden (very poor Class 5) Goudhurst (Class 4) Faversham (Class 4) and Langdon Bay (Class 4).

This selected site location with an increasing preponderance of urban and poor quality sites dominating a much smaller number of sample points is a contributing factor to artificially inflating the temperature record.