Plymouth:Kinterbury Point – Another “administrative error”?

50.39646 -4.20121 NO CIMO Assessment Installed 23/10/2023

It is perfectly reasonable to have a weather station sited alongside a Helipad – pilots need to have good data on the wind and related weather effects. It is actually quite common such as at Almondsbury and in even closer proximity at Battersea. What is questionable, however, is adding readings intended only for immediate aviation advice to the historic temperature record. The case of Kinterbury Point is a curious one not dissimilar to “errors ” such as at Hastings and Edenbridge and who knows how many others.

Installed just over a year ago Kinterbury Point quickly made a starring appearance in the Met Office “Daily Extremes” for 12th June 2024 recording the national highest temperature of 19.1°C. Unfamiliar with the site name, on checking, I could not find it on the Met Office Climate and Synoptic Stations listing. The only Met Office station listing for Plymouth was the Mountbatten site which recorded a maximum hourly reading of 1.5°C lower as below. Was this a case of a new poor site artificially pushing up the temperature record?

I contacted the Met Office enquiries desk to ascertain where this station was, when installed and for its CIMO classification but no immediate response was offered. It was at this time that a senior Met Office manager ( Karl Shepherdson) had just reneged on his offer of a video conference to discuss my concerns over weather station accuracy as detailed in my letter to Peter Kyle MP. Responses to my enquiries were not forthcoming. I asked Paul Homewood of NALOPKT for assistance. He additionally contacted the Met Office to receive the following response on the 18th June.

“Subject: Plymouth Kinterbury

Hi Paul, thank you for your enquiry.

I have checked the weather station you mentioned in your enquiry and it has come to light that an administrative error resulted in data from this site recently making it on to our external website for extremes.

This is a customer-only site and as such is used to inform the customer’s specific decisions rather than being used for public records. As this site is used to provide very specific customer information, which is not climate related, it therefore does not have a CIMO rating and should not be available for our external website for extremes. The issue has now been resolved and will no longer be seen in any of our products.

Thank you for making us aware of this.

Nicky

Nicola Maxey BSc (Hons) Senior Press Officer”

Whilst I can accept that “administrative errors” do occur, it is becoming increasingly evident that the Met Office seems to make rather more than their fair share. The first obvious question is that if neither Paul nor I had raised this matter, would it ever have been resolved and would data from a non assessed site continue potential inclusion in the historic temperature record. A further point worth noting is that prior to the above date, whenever Plymouth recorded a regional or national high, it was always shown as “Plymouth:Mountbatten” {or Plymouth:Kinterbury Point as above} but subsequently it is now only shown as “Plymouth” i.e. with no further identifier. Is the omission of this site specific identification another administrative error or are the Kinterbury Point figures still being used…..who actually knows?