Scilly: St Mary’s Airport WMO03802 – Does the Met Office actually do climate science anymore?

49.91452 -6.29578 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Temperature “records” from 1/1/1991

There has been a weather station in the Scilly Isles since at least 1873 and probably earlier. In more recent times there have been 3 simultaneously operating stations with two on the main Isle of St Mary’s. The Isles lay almost 30 miles west of the England mainland and enjoy their own unique microclimate more akin to the sub tropical than the UK. The Met Office includes data from the above site in forming the UK historic climate record. I genuinely feel the need to question the Met Office’s competence in one of its supposed specialties – climate science.

The Met Office produces a listing of “Daily Extremes” throughout the year. For the 49 days between the 1st January and the 18th February, Scilly recorded the UK temperature daily maximum on no fewer than 16 days. At the risk of sounding overly sarcastic – “gosh, who would have guessed eh? ” The fact that Scilly is in no way representative of anywhere other than a small group of tiny islands in the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic and not representative at all of mainland UK seems lost on the Met Office. Frosts in Scilly are very rare events indeed and in 2024 the lowest recorded temperature was over 5°C.

Worse still, though, is that the Met Office seems to think the St Mary’s airport weather station is even representative of the Scilly Isles themselves within its atrociously poor airport setting.

Taking weather readings on St Mary’s is obviously essential for forecasting weather particularly given the prevailing pattern of weather in the UK – a very good “early warning” site. Taking temperature readings for historic climate reporting of the UK is complete nonsense even if the site were a good one – it most certainly is not.

The Met Office will justify their CIMO Class 4 rating on the grounds that their tape measuring shows those solar panels, parked cars, emergency Tenders, EV charging points, terminal buildings, aircraft, roads, runways, helipads, parking aprons and even the surprising slope all probably do not matter – they are far enough away so they are all ignored.

Despite the remote setting almost 50 miles from the nearest mainland weather station, the completely unrepresentative nature to the rest of the UK and the fact that it really is a Class 5 junk site, the Met Office still churns out “long term” climate data from 1961 from an airport site not operating until 1992. Is there a better way to prove Anthropogenic Global Warming that really started to increase from the 1990s?

A better example of where not to take temperature readings for climate reporting purposes would be harder to imagine if it were not for the fact that the Met Office has so very many that are even worse. Is this by design? I started this review pointing out that there used to be two sites on St Mary’s Island, the other one ( 2 kilometres away by Telegraph Tower from where it would have originally transmitted its manual readings) started operating in 1871. It was closed down 1/5/1995 in favour of the airport site. This is the location where Met Office WGS84 coordinates show it was within a 30 metre circled radius.

I know which site I feel meteorologists would much prefer. Of course if you wish to show 21st Century warming………………………………..so I put my hypothesis to the test. The two sites had an operational overlap period between 1991 and May 1995. I randomly analysed January 1992 minimum readings only to see if later full term analysis by someone better equipped was worthwhile. It certainly is. so that anyone can check my workings I give the archived data below from which I compared the 09:00 minimum readings.

Firstly The old Telegraph Tower site.

Column J gives 09:00 minimum readings.

St Marys Airport

Column J again but using the 09:00 reading only taken simultaneous with the above site.

And my rather crudely presented comparison in degrees celsius.

January 1992…………………………..Tower…………………..Airport……………………Variance Airport over Tower.

1……………………………………………..8.6………………………….8.8………………………….+0.2

2……………………………………………..9.3………………………….9.9………………………….+0.6

3……………………………………………..10…………………………..10.2………………………..+0.2

4……………………………………………..7.8…………………………..8.2………………………….+0.4

5……………………………………………..8.2………………………….11……………………………+2.8

6……………………………………………..9.1…………………………..9.7………………………….+0.6

7……………………………………………..9……………………………..9.8………………………….+0.8

8……………………………………………..9.5…………………………..9.7………………………….+0.2

9……………………………………………..5.6…………………………..6…………………………….+0.4

10……………………………………………5.4…………………………..5.8………………………….+0.4

11……………………………………………3.5…………………………..4.1………………………….+0.6

12……………………………………………3……………………………..4.1………………………….+1.1

13……………………………………………5.1…………………………..5.8………………………….+0.7

14……………………………………………5.5……………………………6……………………………+0.6

15……………………………………………6………………………………7.2…………………………+1.2

16……………………………………………6.2…………………………..6.8………………………….+0.6

17…………………………………………..6………………………………6.8…………………………+0.8

18…………………………………………..6.7……………………………7.4…………………………+0.7

19…………………………………………..4.5……………………………5.5…………………………+1

20…………………………………………..5.7……………………………8.2………………………….+2.5

21…………………………………………..4.9……………………………5.5………………………….+0.6

22…………………………………………..3.5……………………………4.3………………………….+0.8

23…………………………………………..3.3……………………………3.7………………………….+0.4

24…………………………………………..4.8……………………………5.4………………………….+0.6

25…………………………………………..6.9……………………………7.8………………………….+0.9

26…………………………………………..7.2……………………………7.7………………………….+0.5

27…………………………………………..3.5……………………………4.3………………………….+0.8

28…………………………………………..3.5……………………………4.2………………………….+0.7

29…………………………………………..4.9……………………………5.3………………………….+0.4

30…………………………………………..4.0……………………………4.5………………………….+0.5

31…………………………………………..4.1……………………………7.8………………………….+3.7

Month Average……………………….5.99.……………………….6.71…………………………+0.72

So there is the solution, all that is required to achieve Anthropogenic Global Warming is to relocate a weather station, change the reading protocol and at a stroke the Scilly Isles average minimum monthly temperature went up 0.71°C. Keep adjusting sites, instrumentation and methodology over the years and nobody needs worry about the actual temperatures ……..hey presto here is the proof.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/10/01/scilly-st-marys-airport-wmo03802-does-the-met-office-actually-do-climate-science-anymore/