ANVIL GREEN WMO03793 – Why the Met Office cannot compare the summers of 1976 and 2025

51.20583 1.01492 No Met Office CIMO Assessment (likely Class 3) Installed 1967 closed 1992 (image from 1990)

Anvil Green is a tiny hamlet in east Kent approximately 9 miles north east of Ashford. There are probably under a dozen properties there and it is notably “off the beaten track”. For 25 years it hosted an official Met Office weather station designated the World Meteorological Organisation reporting system. Of the current around 400 full weather reporting Met Office sites, less than half (170) hold this reporting status hence Anvil Green was considered an important site during its operational days. That it was closed in 1992 is highly indicative of one of several reasons why temperatures past and present cannot be readily compared.

As I noted in my review of Elmstone the overall number of simultaneously operating weather stations in Kent (and indeed throughout the majority of the UK) has significantly reduced since the 1970’s. The original Met Office sites were all manual reporting with most reporting just once daily and a third of all modern day sites still do. For weather forecasting purposes this is of very limited use thus greater reading frequency and speedier data transmission was needed. This resulted in automation of sites starting with the first ( coincidentally 1976) at Eskdalemuir.

Automation of sites required a change of instrumentation from a visually read Liquid in Glass Thermometer (LIGT) to an electronically read Platinum Resistance Thermometer (PRT). This needed a reliable electricity supply and tele-communications to the site over which to transmit the data. Rural sites such as Anvil Green would have difficulty (particularly in telecomms) in providing such services so ultimately were not deemed worthy of conversion and closed down in favour of sites that more readily could. Despite Anvil Green being a good quality site that was very representative of inland rural Kent and free from any urbanisation effects it was closed for non meteorological reasons.

This is the start of the false comparisons the Met Office now in almost Orwellian style proclaims – “He who controls the past controls the future. He who controls the present controls the past”

The recent Met Office report above is probably the most mendacious proclamation I have ever come across. If anyone should rewrite Darrell Huff’s seminal work “How to Lie with Statistics” I recommend they headline with the above Met Office claim as the premier example.

Not only does the Met Office claim 2025 as the “hottest evah!” summer they also relegated 1976 to 6th place – anyone old enough to remember 1976 (I was 20) needs to be re-educated. The Met Office currently controls the present so they are rewriting the past to control the future. This is, of course, total nonsense.

To examine 1976 in relation to my local area at the time (Kent), along with the very rural Anvil Green station were the following now closed sites.

Bromley Church House gardens – suburban parkland and leisure area.

Chatham South – in the extensive grounds of Holcombe Grammar School though now housing – then a rural site.

Dover RMS: Guston set in the extensive grounds of the Duke of York’s Royal Military School – still a rural location to this day.

Dover – a cooler seafront location by the one of the world’s largest artificial harbours.

Dungeness by a lighthouse on Europe’s largest shingle peninsula. A cooler seafront location.

Elmstone a very rural and almost certainly Class 1 site that recorded the all time lowest temperature ever in Kent.

Folkestone in the playing fields of the Harvey Grammar School though compromised by housing development in its latter years.

Greenwich and Greenwich Observatory. 2 independent separate sites both within Greenwich Park.

Hadlow a rural agricultural college site.

Herne Bay: Bishopstone Rural outskirts of the town and only now about to be developed.

Margate Seafront bowls club – cooler coastal site on a headland.

St Margarets Bay cooler seafront site under White Cliffs of Dover – nearest UK point to France.

Ulcombe Very rural – similar to Anvil Green.

Wye Class 1 excellent long term site at rural agricultural college site.

Of these 16 closed sites (but operating in 1976), only the Greenwich and possibly Bromley sites (now deemed to be within Greater London) would be considered to be subject to any Urban Heat Island effects or extraneous heat sources. It is also worth noting that going back a further 10 years to the mid 1960s adds a further 12 sites reporting simultaneously to these above.

In addition to these are the still operating sites

East Malling Falsely claimed to be Class 1 but site imagery proves compromised to Class 5 junk by massive poly-tunnel complex to the south east that the Met Office refused to discuss with me. They adamantly sustain their claim this is Class 1.

Edenbridge Falsely claimed to be Class 1 that the Met Office were forced to concede was actually Class 4 when challenged.

Faversham Proven to be grossly inaccurate by the Royal Meteorological Society, ignored by most reputable meteorologists and exposed as unsatisfactory (also claims the highest 2025 temperature).

Goudhurst A site which in 1976 was in a wide open clearing (as below) but in 2025 is fully surrounded by dense woodland.

RAF Manston A site alongside one of the widest airfields in Europe, over 9,000 feet long and with extremely dubious provenance.

Subsequent to these sites since 1976 there have been the following additional installations:

Gravesend a site so appallingly bad that despite being installed in 1995 and setting numerous records, had to be removed in 2018 largely because of its embarrassment factor. Equally condemned by the Royal Meteorological Society as Faversham was.

Langdon Bay (known as Langdon Heights, Dover atop the White Cliffs to everyone else) Noted for its car exhaust pipe proximity and adjacent helipad – installed in 1984.

Finally Frittenden from 2011 and noted for being in a back garden alongside a poly tunnel and vegetable patch. Temperatures here consistently run hotter than a nearby rural open site private weather station.

The picture I have tried to paint here is that in 1976, contrary to what many may think, there were far more official measuring points, however, the vast majority were in cooler reporting rural locations. They were far better maintained and observed and all used LIGT. Trying to compare these 49 year old readings with modern heavily corrupted sites using PRTs and nearly all recording 1,440 sixty second duration daily readings rather than just mostly 2 daily points is ridiculously comparing apples with not oranges (at least they are round as well) but more likely bananas.

In 1976 there were not only 16 consecutive days over 30°C from 23rd June onwards but also a further 5 days over that threshold at other times – 21 days measured by LIGT only as mostly once daily events. This contrasts with the 2025 figures of one 4 day stint, 3 three day events and a further one day totalling 14 measured days by PRTs. None of these were at Class 1 sites with the majority being recorded in West London and inevitably the annual high of 35.8°C reached at the wholly discredited Faversham site. Aviation sites at Heathrow and Charlwood (Gatwick) account for half of all readings.

As previously discussed the progressive removal of double counting nighttime minima (not just a winter phenomenon), the increasing incidence of Aitken Effects , the noted spikiness of PRTs and the sleight of hand of unique meteorological averaging have all contrived to produce unrepresentative figures for Met Office mendacious manipulation. This nonsense must be stopped and the Met office held to account for its deceits.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/09/23/anvil-green-wmo03793-why-the-met-office-cannot-compare-the-summers-of-1976-and-2025/