Cliff Farm (Unknown Demarcation) – Does this site even exist? An appeal for reader’s assistance.

A Talkshop reader recently contacted me regarding the above X (Twitter) post by the Met Office to ask if I knew anything about the “Cliff Farm” weather station as they had been unable to find it on the Met Office listing of official sites. I could not readily locate it either and furthermore I found the reading of – 6.6°C impossible to believe. The location map above indicated that particular Scottish region had only recorded the lowest at Eskdalemuir of 1.7°C according to weatherobs.com. The following lengthy investigation proved to be very revealing.

I asked the reader if they could ask the Met Office for the site location and to get a confirmation of when the temperature was recorded as the Met Office no longer responds to any of my inquiries. Meanwhile I trawled through every data file I knew and even resorted to AI but still drew a complete blank.

One useful thing I did discover in this process is that the Met Office often has more than one name for sites. I was aware, for example, that Pershore was also known as Throckmorton but had assumed this multiple naming was a rarity whilst it is, in fact, not at all unusual. I found that the atrocious Hull East Park site was also known as “Hawkesbury Bushes” being situated close to Hawkesbury Street. The “Bushes” addendum rather indicates the Met Office are aware of the site’s multiple overgrown problems.

Grok AI, however, suggested that the location might be a “Forecast Point”. I had come across these before and highlighted the multiple sites quoted at Tenby which were not real measured points but simply computer generated “approximation points” usually for the the benefit of specific industries notably tourism and agriculture. This still did not help but was an intriguing prospect.

At this point my reader forwarded me the Met Office response. N.B. the bold is the Met Office’s not mine.

Good morning,

We have had the following back from our support teams. 

The observing station Cliff Farm does exist and it is located at 56.75, -5.81.

It recorded a low temperature due to an error that is now being fixed by our maintenance team.

Thank you for your correspondence.’ 

Kind regards,

Richard

Weather Desk

The somewhat imprecise coordinates seemed unusual as the archives for weather stations normally run to the 5th degree decimal and offer WGS84 (GPS) location as in the example below of Faversham. Finding sites when offered this precision is quite easy whilst the offered Cliff Farm coordinates were not suitable.

The second point was that the Met Office did indeed confirm there was an error with the reading but did not opt to amend their incorrect X post. I personally responded on X to question that but no correction nor redaction has occurred. False data still sits in full public view. If this station really does exist will such an erroneous figure be archived in the way it was at Floors Castle and Stratchclyde Park and Waddington etc.

This was initially as close to the site as I could ascertain and there certainly does not appear to be a weather station there nor likely to be.

Now with a vague area to work on, I noticed the local settlement was called Acharacle. Trying this name revealed a rain gauge site and these often are later used to include a screen. However this site is quite distant and closed down in 1977. Pursuing this angle I did find a Cliff Farm, Dorlin Road, Acharacle PH36 4JTY located here about 1 km from the coordinated point thus almost certainly the “Cliff Farm” being referenced.

Despite scouring the area in the best close up I could manage there was still no trace of a screen – perhaps this was yet another very new site subsequent to the area imagery. I then tried a deeper search just on “Acharacle” and these appeared – firstly the BBC who are not the Met Office nor beholden to using solely Met office data.

Acharacle is a very small settlement indeed at the start of the Ardnamurchan peninsula which includes the furthest westerly point of Mainland Great Britain and even more westerly than Lands End in Cornwall. If it did not have a weather station it seemed an unusual location to select for such specific forecasting. I also found this from Weather Underground .

Even Weather Underground highlight Acharacle…..but…….the reporting “station” is actually quoted as “Glenborrodale” so where and what is that?

The above is a private weather station given as 58.68N -5.99W – i.e. a considerably different location to Acharacle.

So is there a physical weather station at Cliff Farm or not? I put all this information into Grok AI which immediately responded

“Cliff Farm is a weather forecast point simulating data for the wider area”

At this point I asked my reader if they would confirm with the Met Office once again if there actually was a physical station at Cliff Farm which they did on 23rd November……since then……..”CRICKETS” from the Met Office.

One last attempt to verify was by contacting the local community group in Acharacle – they had no idea either!

In summary it very much appears there is no weather station named Cliff Farm in the Acharacle area. It very much appears that this is a fictional point for which data is synthesised by a Met office computer programme that obviously produced an erroneous figure. This excitingly “extreme” figure was immediately seized upon and publicised by the Met Office. When found to be seriously wrong it was not redacted.

I may be wrong with my summary and in this I ask for any reader’s further help. Could other readers please contact the Met Office to get exact coordinates or location details of the Cliff Farm site to finally ascertain whether or not this is an official Met Office weather station, what its official designation (DCNN – District County Network Number) and from when it has been operational. If they can answer then I will happily redact this post. If the Met office cannot or will not then there are serious further questions to be answered.

enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/30/cliff-farm-unknown-demarcation-does-this-site-even-exist-an-appeal-for-readers-assistance/