Pershore College DCNN 4833 – Confusing names, concealed data and the demise of the CET.

52.10009 -2.06001 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Archived Temperature record from 1959

This weather station is in the grounds of Pershore College, a 90 hectare horticultural college near Evesham, and part of WCG (Warwickshire College Group) even though it is Worcestershire. It is also one of the current three weather stations contributing readings to the modern day Central England Temperature record – the World’s longest continually running series which has now fallen under the control of the Met office. And thereby hangs a tale.

Firstly this site is CIMO assessed (by the Met Office themselves) as Class 4 from which I quote:

So this weather station is potentially inaccurate by a significant ADDITIONAL uncertainty.

How does the Met Office choose to interpret these classifications?

” the WMO classification simply informs the data user of the geographical scale of a site’s representativity of the surrounding environment – the smaller the siting class, the higher the representativeness of the measurement for a wide area. ” {Talkshop comment: “simply informs” patronising or what?}

Thus the Met Office is clearly and unquestionably stating that a site rated a “high” i.e. numbered Class 4 (out of a possible 5) is NOT representative of a wide area, whilst a “smaller” siting Class 1 certainly is a good representation of a wide area.

There are just three stations in the CET intended to represent the total area of central England.

BASIC COMMONSENSE would therefore dictate that only weather stations representative of wider areas should be used – but they are not.

The current chosen stations are Rothamsted (Class 1) together with Stonyhurst (Class 4) and Pershore College (Class 4). The Met Office’s logic-fail is blatantly obvious. Were there really no better and more area representative other options than Pershore College and Stonyhurst to choose from? A very poor indictment of the Met Office if these really are the best available.

A quick view of this automatic reporting site indicates it is hard alongside a large hedge to both the west and south causing not only substantial shading effects from sunshine but also holding in warmed trap air. The entire college area has undergone major redevelopment over recent decades and bears no similarity in local area heating effects to when it was originally installed. Firstly the 10 metre circled area.

The contrast between the wider angle modern site view with the area view on instalation is quite remarkable. As now……

And back then……..

So how is this site’s data represented to the public, after all it is being used to compile an internationally famous temperature record. An inspection creates confusion to the lay person.

Pershore College recorded the regional high and there is a hyperlink to its readings – clearly there should be no mystery to them given the station’s high profile. What is found on this link?

Confused? Why no Pershore College data that is so important it is part of the CET? The plot thickens – go to the alphabetical list of CIMO Classifications I published back on 6/11/2024 and look for “Throckmorton” and you will NOT find it.

So what is this “Throckmorton” weather station? Aviators will know it better as RAF Throckmorton named after its neighbouring village BUT the Met Office now chooses to call it PERSHORE but only when they don’t call it Throckmorton! Confused?

This alternative “Pershore/Throckmorton” is the same Class 4 low rating as its occasional namesake and I will review it shortly as a part of a series reviewing questionable aviation sites. It is worth noting though that these two neighbouring sites regularly record significantly divergent temperatures. Whilst Pershore College was hailed as the regional high at 6.4°C above, Pershore/Throckmorton only managed a peak of 5.3°C just 3.3 miles away and 5 metres lower.

To further muddy the waters, if Pershore College is being used to compile the CET by the Met Office then they must surely have “Climate Averages” data available to view. Going to their now named “Location Specific Long term Averages” page (recently renamed from their Climate Averages Stations) is incredibly illuminating.

Interrogating under the exact site name the Met office claims “we don’t have any climate stations at or nearby that location” You really could not make it up. So trying the “other one” at Pershore shows this

The nearest station to Pershore is 3 miles away and known as …..Pershore.

In their haste to “cover their backs” from the debacle of showing data from 102 out of 302 weather stations reporting climate averages detailed in my report on Dungeness that do not actually exist, the Met Office closed down the original Climate averages web page which can still be viewed here. This former page gave coordinates and site details now intentionally removed from the new version. Consequently in the absence of coordinates it is now not possible to verify which actual station’s data is being reported. Interrogating the same webpage under the name Throckmorton gives no further enlightenment but bizarrely gives a different alternate site replacing Little Rissington with Winterbourne.

The final result is that it is not possible to actually identify where the data is coming from which either indicates deliberacy or ineptitude.

In conclusion (if any can actually be drawn from such a confused situation) Pershore College is a poor quality site that has hugely changed for the worse over recent times. Its readings are being used to represent a wide ranging area though the Met Office itself openly admits its data cannot represent a wide area. Its readings are not openly available to view amidst all manner of confusions and apparent conflations with another site of completely different climatology.

If a private company were aiming to sell products with such appalling depiction they would be banned by the Advertising Standards Authority – for some reason the Met Office feel above such accuracy restrictions.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/01/08/pershore-college-dcnn-4833-confusing-names-concealed-data-and-the-demise-of-the-cet/