Hunterston No 3 DCNN6518 – The resurrection of a dead weather station and Met Office “mean” manipulation meltdown.

55.72271 -4.89348 Met Office CIMO Assess Class 5 Installed 1/1/1965 Died 9/12/2022 Resurrected 1/9/2024/

I was originally not going to review this station as it appeared to have closed in December 2022 and was in an exceptionally poor location even by the low standards of the Met Office. However, when the new CEDA archive data for 2024 was recently released I discovered a new file had been opened for this site despite no relocation – a genuine resurrection. Researching not only uncovered the absurdity of this site but also a stunning revelation about Met Office instrumentation choices and subsequent data use.

{Apologies to regular readers for the bold shouting – please understand my motives. I will be forwarding this report to an organisation that appears to be hard of thinking.}

The Hunterston site is home to 2 Magnox and 2 Advanced Gas Cooled reactors with all 4 now in varying stages of decommissioning having shut down in 1990 and 2022 respectively. Primary cooling at such reactors is by high pressure CO2 but secondary cooling is by recirculating seawater with no cooling towers that are generally typical of most other non nuclear plants in the UK.

The 10 metre encircled area shows the weather station enclosure lies between a roadway, a footpath, in the shade of a large deciduous tree and……a very bright and shiny above ground pipeline. Another image from Google Earth Pro dated August 2014 indicates just how reflective this structure is.

The Met Office rated this site as class 5 with its attendant unquestionable “additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 5 °C” I personally challenge anyone at the Met Office to defend the accuracy of this site rather than making risible attempts to discredit me (and others) who question their scientific integrity.

This location in the middle of the massive industrial complex of the Hunterston A & B Nuclear power plants represents no area other than the massive and UNIQUE industrial complex of Hunterston A and B nuclear power plants – to suggest otherwise is mendacious. The Met Office claims it is difficult to find good quality CIMO Class 1 and 2 sites in the UK’s high latitude – well nobody is ever going to find good ones if you look no further than the likes of Hunterston or Grangemouth. It is demonstrably untrue that CIMO Class 1 & 2 sites are unavailable, the problem for the Met Office is that they have a history of closing down those good ones they had, presumably because they were not producing the required end results.

I MUST POINT OUT THAT YOU MUST NOT BELIEVE ANY OF THE ABOVE EVIDENCE OF YOUR OWN EYES BECAUSE THE MET OFFICE SAYS SO. IT IS ALL OBVIOUSLY DISINFORMATION

Examining the historical observation record for Hunterston was very surprising indeed. Despite at its peak having up to 1,500 people employed on site with a very large continuous presence guaranteed for every single minute of the year regardless of absolutely everything else, readings were at best only sporadically taken. Not only are there numerous staff available, the general weather conditions and temperature data is very relevant to any seawater cooled power plant.

A quick glance at the size of the temperature data files (they should be around 45KB) reveals all recent years being much smaller warranting closer examination. This is an example of how incredibly bad the record had become that it was much easier to count up the number of days that readings were actually taken rather than deduct the number of days they were not.

Columns I and J are maximum and minimum readings respectively and, unsurprisingly, NA indicates no readings available.

Recent years have less than 50% readings taken – to corroborate that you can check the data here https://data.ceda.ac.uk/badc/ukmo-midas-open/data/uk-daily-temperature-obs/dataset-version-202507/ayrshire/00996_hunterston-no-3/qc-version-1

However, you need to bear in mind that I have supplied this link to the Met Office dataset therefore it must be “Disinformation” according to some people.

YOU MUST NOT BELIEVE DATA FROM ONLINE BLOGGERS according to the Met Office.

Despite this atrocious level of observations the Met Office changed the old maximum Liquid in Glass Thermometer (LIGT) to an electronic Platinum Resistance Thermometer (PRT) on 15/12/2017. The minimum readings continued to be taken by a separate LIGT DESPITE the simple fact that the PRT records every temperature reading by every minute, every day and stores these in its “data logger” memory. A PRT is thus both a combined maximum and minimum reading thermometer rendering the minimum LIGT superfluous for minimum readings – after all on conversion to automatic reporting, in such weather stations PRT serves both functions……. OBVIOUSLY YET MORE ONLINE DISINFORMATION. YOU MUST NOT USE LOGIC AND THIS FACEBOOK CLIP BELOW MUST BE FAKE.

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1893457610801591

The motives behind this duplicity of systems will be discussed in further parts of my Reification of Averages series under “Playing the System – The Sharp versus the Blunt Instrument “.

Having spent taxpayer funds uprating this barely ever read instrumentation, the Met Office finally appeared to shut down the site on the 9th December 2022.

Measurements made

Station code	Message type ?	Message start date	Message end date

The data file under “Message end date” for 9/12/2022 specifically reads….”end data.” No readings exist for 2023 but then came the resurrection of 1/9/2024 with a new file opening.

Station code	Message type ?	Message start date	Message end date
DCNN 6518	DLY3208	2024-09-01	Current

Was this new life to be the turning of a new leaf in observation standards? Emphatically NO. readings apparently converted to an “every other day sort of thing”. “NA” is clearly working part time.

DESPITE THE FACT THIS IS FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE DATA, IT IS OBVIOUSLY MISINFORMATION BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, THE MET OFFICE SAYS SO.

What could possibly be the reason for this afterlife of Hunterston, after all the Met Office has literally 102 undead, non existent, Zombie sites where they clearly do not feel constrained by actually having to have recording instruments located there. They can simply “construct” figures for Zombie sites by a peer reviewed process for which they can then refuse to divulge the input sites. The likes of Scole (and many others) have already proved their clairvoyant capabilities.

Looking at Hunterston 3 where its “Climate Averages” neighbours are is even more illuminating.

Pause for thought………..which “scientist” decided to contrive 60 year rolling climate averages for the period 1961 to 2020 for Largs 4 miles away which closed down in 1975 when also just 4 miles away is Gt Cumbrae:Millport weather station which started in 1959 and is still running?

Why is Largs more important than Hunterston itself which has been operating for far longer”.

Why direct website viewers to Paisley weather station that the Met Office ridiculously claims to be still “Open” providing ongoing monthly mean data despite closure over 15 years ago and with an ongoing refusal to divulge the operational sites used to concoct those means.

Furthermore, why ignore many much nearer long term sites such as Bute:Rothesay, Auchincruive, Darvel:Hillview and Arran: Brodick Castle? Could it be that some weather stations readings are “more suitable” than others even if they do not exist?

AGAIN, ALL THE ABOVE DETAIL IS SOURCED FROM THE MET OFFICE SO IT MUST BE…..erm ONLINE DISINFORMATION?

So……here is the most plausible reason why the Met Office withholds details of those stations used in their homogenisation process: – The Met Office uses readings from sites that are as ridiculously unacceptable as Hunterston 3 on a selected basis of their choosing. By carefully adjusting both those sites chosen, new site locations and the instrumentation selectively, they can manipulate their crude averaging systems based on engineered extremes to produce the figures they want.

IF I AM WRONG THEY CAN EASILY REFUTE MY CLAIM BY PRODUCING DETAILS OF THE STATIONS USED TO PROVIDE THE AUGUST 2025 MONTHLY MEANS AT LOWESTOFT, NAIRN:DRUIM, NEWTON RIGG AND PAISLEY……..BUT I GUARANTEE THEY WILL NOT.

So what are they hiding?

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/08/03/hunterston-no-3-dcnn6518-the-resurrection-of-a-dead-weather-station-and-met-office-mean-manipulation-meltdown/