Stowe DCNN 4525 – Wrong Classification or more Met office mistakes?

52.04166 -1.01323 Met Office CIMO assessed Class 4 (?) and “Unsatisfactory” Installed 18/4/2012

Stowe automatic weather station was installed in the grounds of the large independent Stowe School. Locating weather stations in school grounds was very common in the past as with large open playing fields they naturally were good representative sites. Stowe school is by any standards expensive being in excess of £45,000 (+VAT) per annum in full boarding and tuition fees. The facilities on offer are exceptionally well appointed as is the weather station site. But for some unexplained reasons the Met office do not seem to think so.

The Met Office claims this site is CIMO Class 4 with all its associated inaccuracy.

I genuinely cannot understand why this site should be so lowly rated. Is the Met Office claiming this site is no better than DYCE? Surely this cannot be correct. This is the definition of Class1

Firstly delineating the 100 metre radius from the site does not reveal anything other than open fields. It meets Class 1 on these grounds.

The issue of slope is determined by “(a) Flat, horizontal land, surrounded by an open space, slope less than ⅓ (19°);”

The Met Office quotes the site elevation as 145 metres amsl which agrees with the Ordnance Survey segment below.

It is worth noting the highest spot height by the famous landmark “Wolfe’s Obelisk” peaks at just 3 metres higher than the screen and is 320 metres away. The two nearby modern Astroturf hockey pitches (obviously completely flat) are indicated at 138 metres amsl and are over 420 metres distant. There is no close up street view available but the nearest viewpoint shows an almost perfectly flat vista.

Shading seems to be a non-existent issue. The nearest tree line is 120 metres away which in relatively flat country presents no problem at all. Which just leaves ground cover, all of which looks as natural as modern Buckinghamshire is ever likely to get. If the Met Office can accept being surrounded by solar panels as at Chertsey: Abbey Meads (which they claim meets Class3) as satisfactory then Stowe is perfection.

Now we have the mystery of the Met office rating system. When I inquired last year, the Stowe screen was classed by the ill-defined and unique Met Office rating system as “Unsatisfactory” . No explanation of why is available, however, it surely cannot be due to location. If there was/is some technical issue with the screen that can surely be readily resolved. I shall ask the Met Office to explain this issue, however, it should not realistically affect the CIMO classification.

I am at a complete loss to understand why the Met Office downgraded this site or did they? Other data received from FOI indicates that in 2021 the site was actually Classed as Class 1 after all!

The above is the listing of English stations from 2021. Note the errors:- Cippenham Sewage Works is now Class 4 and is so poor it can only be a default “Human error“, High Mowthorpe is now correctly rated Class 3 – again a likely original default error.

Was Stowe originally included as Class 1 from similar default and human error but now adjusted down to Class 4? Or is this just another example of Met Office ineptitude – who actually knows? Objectively the site looks as good as it gets which is unsurprising given the status of the school site.

It seems remarkably odd the Met Office should be marking down one the few good sites it actually has. Could there be a reason? The site is obviously rural and not subject to any immediate Urban Heat Island effects. It noticeably registers cooler than its near neighbours. Again from FOI request, I obtained annual averages temperatures for all official Met Office weather stations in England for the years 2021,2022 and 2023. I compared Stowe with the venerable Oxford Radcliffe site some 20 miles away.

Average daily Temperature…….2021…………………2022…………………….2023

Stowe…………………………………….9.9…………………….10.9………………………10.6

Oxford……………………………………11.1…………………..12.1………………………11.6

Not only is the Urban Heat Island effect clearly showing up, it is also very easy to see how overall national averages data can be manipulated solely by site selection. As I pointed out in my review of the closed Elmstone site, the removal of these rural stations appears to be a significant cause in the reported overall national average temperature increases. Is the Met office regretting the recent addition of Stowe and looking to “sideline” it?

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/01/11/stowe-dcnn-4525-wrong-classification-or-more-met-office-mistakes/