Lowestoft Addendum – The non existent “Well Correlated” stations and why the Met Office will not answer.

{Today’s post marks the first anniversary of my restarting the surface stations project. 328 posts later I never expected to find the incredibly sorry state of the UK Met Office, its data and its presentation. There is a long way to go yet.}

This post is intended to be read following on from the Wye and Addendum reviews to act as a contrast between direct real world analysis of data and the “land of make believe” that the Met Office now seems to be inhabiting. It is also essential to read the original Dungeness and Lowestoft reports and be familiar with the extraordinary lengths the Met Office is employing to withhold exactly what it is doing. Apologies for all the pre reading to aid understanding, but for those possibly not familiar with the background it is important to be “up to speed”. I shall now demonstrate the reasons why the Met office will not supply me with the requested details regarding Lowestoft.

The headline image is from the Met Office Location Specific Long Term Averages webpage that most regular readers will be familiar with. The Met Office renamed and amended this site from their “Climate Averages” webpage following my disclosure from FOI that of the 302 stations on the list, 102 of them do not actually exist. The original page can be viewed here on the wayback machine. https://web.archive.org/web/20240807063354/https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages

{Ed note:The Location Specific page used to show rolling 30 year averages for 1961-1990, 1971 – 2000, 1981 to 2010 and 1991 to 2020. In the last few days the Met Office have removed the 2 mid 30 year periods so now only 1961 – 1991 & 1990 -2020 are available. No explanation has been given for this change}

Following this change from climate averages the Met Office then hired a Facebook sponsored censorship organisation to rather ineptly attempt to debunk me. This resulted in the Met Office receiving the “Dinosaur of the Year” award and accusations of being “scared” and ultimately adjusting websites to claim disagreement with them was “misinformation“.

None of all the above “theatre” actually brings anyone any nearer to ascertaining the truth about anything at all and that, I suspect, is just as the Met Office likes it – no real information was disclosed, the smoke screen worked.

Starting with the headline image not only does the Lowestoft weather station no longer exist (it closed in 2010) but also none of the others exist either – Hemsby at 14 miles distant closed 2/4/2001, Coltishall at 25 miles distant closed 4/4/2006, Scole 26 miles distant closed in 1980 (correct 45 years ago) and Morley St Botolph at 30 miles distant closed 1/1/2005.

What makes all this more relevant is that Lowestoft is also noted as a “Historic Station” on the Met Office Historic Station Data page as an “Open site” even though it is clearly stated as a closed site on the closed stations list.

N.B. The Monckton Avenue site only “opened” in 2003. The original site (known as “Belle Vue”) was some 1.48 kilometres away from Monckton Avenue and looked like this. This original site has archived temperature data from 1889.

Lowestoft is, however, continuing to this date to produce ongoing “Monthly Estimates” of temperature and sunshine that look like this.

Just a cursory glance at some of these modern “estimated” figures against the historic recorded ones brings the estimate’s veracity into serious question. The summer of 1976 still stands out in the CET as the hottest ever recorded, compare the average high data recorded at Lowestoft.

…………………………………………….1976……………………………..2023………………………..2022

June……………………………………..20.6°C…………………………..21°C………………………..20.3°C

July………………………………………21.6°C………………………….21.6°C………………………24.5°C

August…………………………………20.7°C…………………………..21.9°C………………………24.6°C

Is the Met office really claiming their “estimates” of the unexceptional summer in 2023 at Lowestoft were actually hotter than the stand out 1976 summer? Are they really confident that August 2022 had an average high that was 3.9°C hotter?

In a few weeks time, figures for August 2025 will be added to this list. From which weather stations these figures are estimated is something the Met Office REFUSES to divulge on the impossible to believe grounds that “it is not retained information”.

The Met Office claims:

” Each estimate is based on data from up to six other stations. The chosen stations are well correlated with the target station and have data for the missing month. The choice of predictor stations will change as the network evolves (for example, when stations open and close)“

As if by magic they then claim that they do not keep a record of those “up to six other stations”…..What not ever, not even for one day? Hands up anyone who believes that!

In order to consider which stations could be used in the formulation of estimates for Lowestoft we need a definition of “Well Correlated”.

Correlation is defined as “a mutual relationship or connection between two or more things“. In order to have demonstrated good correlation with Lowestoft, any other site would have to have operated simultaneously with it and, of course, would still need to be operating and providing real data now. Thus we have instantly ruled out everyone of the “Climate Stations” linked in the headline image. They may, or may not, have been well correlated in the past but as they are now no longer producing any real data at all they cannot be used. {If anyone wishes to claim that they can be used I would be intrigued as to how they come to that position}

Stating the obvious, Lowestoft is on the coast indicating correlation with other coastal sites really should be appropriate.

The next critically important qualifying criterion is any current operational site should have had a lengthy operational overlap period with Lowestoft to demonstrate the correlation. A very good demonstration of this necessity was shown at South Farnborough where a small relocation caused significant changes to readings when compared to its prior site during simultaneous operation. This difference occurred over just a few hundred metres.

Attempting to suggest any other form of comparison methodology other than simultaneity is more clairvoyance than science, there is no other yardstick for comparison – computer generated gobbledy-gook really does not count.

In the above climate averages stations listings, sites up to 30 miles away were considered relevant – quite how the Met Office squares this with its own details of site variance as demonstrated in my review of Teignmouth is a complete mystery. They openly demonstrated that even close neighbouring sites can be dramatically different so consider the geography of Lowestoft and a 50 mile radius.

There are no surface stations to the east of Lowestoft for the simple reason that it is the most easterly point of the entire UK. In fact Lowestoft really is unique in having nowhere at all to the north, east or south of it for hundreds of miles and none of those points are in the UK.

Where are these ” up to six well correlated” sites that remain “withheld”?

The nearest site to Lowestoft is Class 5 Lingwood:Strumpshaw Hill 14 miles inland in a wood that only started temperature records 1/4/2009 – a completely different location type, very poor and with only 18 months operational overlap. Ruled out.

Next is Neatishead at 20 miles away and inland that was only installed in 2023 so no possible correlation – Ruled out.

Tibenham Airfield is 24 miles inland and only operational from February 2015 so again no possible correlation – Ruled out.

Charsfield is 29 miles inland on a fruit farm with temperature records from 1992. If temporal correlation is the only requirement then this one counts but is a field on a fruit farm really similar to the UK eastern sea side? I doubt Charsfield suffers from the notorious “Sea Frets” (Haar) that Lowestoft regularly experiences. Dubious to include this site.

At 35 miles there is Mannington Hall. This site is temporally acceptable with records from 1992 but is a Class 5 inland site in a “Glamping” field behind a manor house walled kitchen garden really physically well correlated with the sea side? Again improbably dubious.

So the first real possible comparative and possibly well correlated site is Cromer at 36 miles distant.

Distances are now really stretching out. At 41 miles there is the only other possibly comparative at Weybourne which at least is on the coast. Wattisham is also 41 miles distant but suggesting a remote RAF Airfield climate is in anyway well correlated would be an absurdity.

Beyond these quoted stations (East Bergholt appears to have closed down at 47 miles away) all the rest exceed 50 radial miles away inland. The nearest coastal site south-southwestwards is Shoeburyness 74 miles distant.

Realistically there are just two distant sites – Class 4 Cromer and Class 2 Weybourne (the latter with some suspicions over unusual heat spikes and nearby associated aviation use) – from which Lowestoft data could possibly start to be derived. This seems incredibly unlikely to produce even a vaguely close relationship let alone one the Met Office quotes to the second decimal place in its climate averages pages.

For long term temperature comparisons, the World Meteorological Organisation recommends rather than simply using running means, data should be compared to a reference period of data from 1960 to 1990. I personally do not accept that necessity on multiple grounds just one of which is why should that particular period be so preferred? As I highlighted in reviewing the closed Elmstone site, in the mid point year of the above preferred reference period i.e. 1975, there were 32 simultaneously operating Met Office weather stations recording air temperature in my home county of Kent. Most of them were rural sites such as Elmstone and generally recording cooler than more urbanised sites. In 2018 this number had dropped to the current grand total of just 7 and everyone of them is now using completely different instrumentation to earlier days. The period 1960 to 1990 is clearly NOT an apples with apples comparison for modern temperatures.

This period disparity of extant weather stations is clearly demonstrated at Lowestoft with hardly any weather stations at all in its near vicinity. However, to make the same East Anglian comparison as I did with Kent I refer to the CEDA interactive map of the area showing the majority of sites that have ever existed.

I recommend readers look up the link themselves for any area of the UK, select “daily-temperature” and see just how many sites there used to be that are now no longer operating. When Met Office computer modellers Matthew Perry and Dan Hollis concocted their climate average calculating algorithms for the appropriate approval in 2004 of selected and like minded exclusive club members ( aka “Peer Review”) did they actually expect it to continue unchanged despite literally hundreds of station closures?

The adjacent counties of Norfolk and Suffolk used to have a combined total of 43 functioning weather stations during the WMO recommended “reference period” of 1961 -1990. For the period from 2010 during which Lowestoft’s data has been completely fabricated there are just 16 remaining stations with only the distant Cromer and Weybourne being coastal. All the following have closed:

Inland sites: Bressingham. Burlingham. Coltishall. Costessey. Ditchingham. East Dereham. Melton Constable. Morley St. Botolph. Norwich. Santon Downham (Grimes Graves). Scole. Sculthorpe. South Raynham. Sprowston. Terrington St Clement. West Raynham. Haughley. Honington. Stradbrook.

Coastal Sites: Aldeburgh. Felixstowe. Levington. Martlesham. Westleton. Gorleston. Hemsby. Hunstanton. Plus, of course, Lowestoft itself.

Climate Averages sites. Of the 9 quoted climate averages sites in Norfolk and Suffolk – 6 DO NOT EXIST.

The entire point of this lengthy post and detailed listings is to demonstrate:

1. There are NO acceptably close “well correlated” left available sites to be used.
2. The only vaguely similar sites are over 35 miles away.
3. The 1961 to 1990 reference period range of weather stations that used to exist bears little to no similarity to the remaining much fewer ones since 2010.
4. All remaining modern sites now use different instrumentation (PRTs rather than LIGTs) to that ever used at Lowestoft.

It is important to remember that the entire nation’s “climate record” from the Met office is derived from these “Location Specific Long Term Climate Averages” as shown below

The Met Office refuses to advise which specific stations are being used to fabricate Lowestoft’s data because:

1.They cannot substantiate any reasonable “well correlation” of those operational sites that are actually used because there are almost certainly none. Any station’s data that is being used is not comparable and will artificially distort readings.

2. They are actually using data that has already been fabricated to create averages for those closed sites from which they expand on. Averages of averages of averages almost ad finitum.

{The Surface Stations Project is currently in the throes of analysing the actual figures available from the two Lowestoft Met Office sites (separately) in the style that was used for Wye and will be reported on shortly. }

After the first full year since reviving the project it is highly instructional that the Met Office retains a roaring silence.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/08/23/lowestoft-addendum-the-non-existent-well-correlated-stations-and-why-the-met-office-will-not-answer/