Buxton DCNN 4112 – Doesn’t Derbyshire Deserve better?

53.25829 -1.91374 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1865

Buxton is claimed to be the UK’s 3rd longest running/oldest weather station behind Armagh and Oxford. It has clearly not improved with age as the surrounding shading trees evident above are unlikely to improve the site’s quality. The Met Office themselves rate Buxton as the lowest possible classification. In fact they also rate the entire county of Derbyshire as Class 5 from the incredibly limited sites they chose to have (or have not) there. Why is Derby considered of such lower meteorological value than other parts of the UK such as West London?

There is no shortage of online images for this veteran Buxton site which seems to be held in reverence far beyond anything it merits. Here it is making a headline role in an article covering its long history.

Google “Streetview” imagery offers more realistic views of the real world, heavily shaded, setting in an area known as “The Slopes” presumably because it is anything but flat.

An important point worth noting regarding all long term sites is the changing nature of the surroundings over the years. The railway station was opened in Buxton in 1863 just two years before the weather station with the population barely more than a large village at 1,800. Not only has the resident population since grown twelve-fold, the urban area around the site has increased even more. In 1865 the Urban Heat Island effect would have been almost non existent in Buxton but will certainly be significant now.

So what is the issue with Derbyshire in general? The county has an area of 1,014 square miles. To put that into comparison the area (largely Greater London) encompassed by the M25 motorway is just 904 square miles.

Derbyshire now has only three weather stations. Buxton is a poor Class 5, obviously subject to shading and is clearly unlikely to be representative of anything other than “The Slopes” on which it stands.

Coton-in-the-Elms lies between Burton and Tamworth in a heavily shaded spot. It is also Class 5, and was only installed in 1991. The little white square just outside the shade and below the large stacks of presumably round bales is the screen shown below.

The last of the trio is Middleton:Hillside (a clue to the nature of its location could be in the name) which lies to the south west of Matlock. It is a manually reporting site in a domestic back garden and again rated Class 5.

This lack of area representation with no good quality sites is typical of certain parts of the country as I discussed regarding Fife and Baintown.

There used to be thirteen simultaneously operating sites in the 1970s at Ashover, Barbrook, Belper, Chapel-en-le-Frith, Chatsworth, Chesterfield, Derby (Cricket Ground), Derby (Markeaton Park), Mackworth, Repton School, Willington, Wingerworth as well as Buxton.

I find it particularly difficult to understand this remarkably low number of poor sites (certainly not Rolls-Royce standard) when contrasted with the emerging patterns I noticed in west London. This map below (courtesy of Weatherobs) shows all automatic reporting weather stations within the smaller M25 area mentioned above. N.B. The south east sites of London:City and London:Biggin Hill airports and the Swanley site are not climate stations nor CIMO assessed.

There are eight automatic climate reporting stations in just a 45° sector of the above 904 square miles area – i.e. just 113 square miles.

This selected “wedge” of London has an automatic station for every 14 square miles, and the number of sites has grown over recent years. Derbyshire has just 2 automatic units at a rate of one per 507 square miles and the numbers have significantly reduced. This surely cannot be justified for meteorological reasons.

A footnote to all this is that Derbyshire frequently gets very cold in winter particularly at elevation. It may still have three weather stations but NONE of them, not even historic Buxton, is used for the calculation of Cold Weather Payments to those in most need.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2024/12/13/buxton-dcnn-4112-doesnt-derbyshire-deserve-better/