Greycrook DCNN1979 – The mysterious disappearances of Met Office record breakers.

55.56598 -2.63649 No Met Office CIMO Assessment. Installed 1/1/1972 Closed 1/10/2004 {Above image from 31/5/2024 almost 20 years after “closure”}

Tim Channon reviewed this site 16/10/2012 with the following comment that I feel indicates sentiments very close to my recent experiences with the Met Office.

This site and other “record breakers” warranted further investigations particularly as the Greycrook weather station is there to this day and seemingly never “closed down” as the Met Office archives indicate. My findings have even greater relevance to this day and show the Met Office is frequently “record chasing” for sensational headlines rather than observational integrity.

Greycrook weather station is in the grounds of SRUC (Scotland’s Rural University College) Veterinary Services centre near the village of St Boswells lying 7 miles to the southeast of Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. This is the area of the famous Scottish novelist, poet and historian, Sir Walter Scott who penned those words most apt for the Met Office – “O, the tangled web we weave, When first we practice to deceive.”

The first thing that Tim Channon noted in his review was: –

“Defunct station setting Scottish highest August temperature August 32.9 °C Greycrook (Scottish Borders) 9 August 2003
Station ceased 2004
This was a very hot day with abnormal weather conditions but no records were broken at formal sites.“

Below are the archived records for the period, n.b. at manual sites the maximum reading is attributed to the day before the reading date hence the 32.9°C recorded for the 10th at 09:00 actually occurred on the 9th.

How does this figure stack up against Tim’s claim “no records were broken at formal sites.” ? Below is a map of all official Met Office temperature recording sites ever within the area.

Up until 31/7/2010 there was a weather station in Galashiels itself, how did its readings compare?

29.2°C is the small matter of 3.7°C lower than the 32.9°C record just a very short distance away. Kelso was even nearer to Greycrook and also had a weather station operational up until 31/12/2003 – at 30.5°C it recorded 2.4 °C lower.

The even nearer but totally absurd (yet still operational) Class 5 Floors Castle station within its deliberately engineered walled garden micro-climate and since having claimed “records” expunged could not get within 1.4°C

Of all the other nearby sites operating in 2003 (note how many more there were then compared to now) none managed to get within 2.5°C of Greycrook. Even the parody of a weather station site by the boiler flue for the tropical greenhouse in the walled garden at Bowhill only acheived 30.1°C being 2.8°C shy of the “record”.

I feel Tim’s original contention is conclusively proven by the surrounding data – none of the surrounding stations (no doubt considered “Well Correlated”) came close to the Greycrook reading.

Moving to Tim’s next point “No mention of an instrument check or a site check.” This is most concerning.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/blog/2025/what-do-weather-stations-do

That no site check has been noted in the archive record indicates none was done. When records are broken the verification is (should be) always noted as per this example for the equally dubious Faversham site where, also in 2003, the then highly contested national record was set.

2003-08-10

2003-08-11

QUALITY CONTROL

DCNN ID 5367 DLY3208: MAX TEMP 38.5 CONFIRMED THERMOMETRY CHECKED AND ACCURATE

It appears that at Greycrook a record was simply waived through with no confirmation process at all.

Tim then highlighted the quite bizarre archive notes for January to May 2004. Greycrook was a manually reporting station and up to that point had a good observation standard from inception in 1972. For example in all of 2003 there were just 3 missing readings covering just 2 days. For clarity here is a screen capture of all archived remarks confirming no testing noted.

What on earth is the term “DATA RUBBISH” intended to indicate for a station that simply records its data on a manual form DLY3208. Not only had the site been doing that perfectly well for over 30 years, it has perfectly good records from 1/6/2004 up to 30/92004 when it was suddenly “closed”. I have never before seen such unspecific, almost slang, terminology used in data archives. Furthermore if there had been a quality problem why allow it to continue for so long? Surely after one month’s problems corrective action would be taken.

The very oddity of the whole affair is that, despite the alleged termination of the site, it is still there to this day and appears to be in well kept order.

To the top right of this image of the entrance roadway, the screen can still be seen. Does the Met Office just abandon its taxpayer funded equipment? Why does the site look still serviceable 21 years after its demise?

At this point I shall introduce an alternative weather station network which happens to include…..Greycrook.

So what really has happened here at Greycrook {and likely at other “record breaking” sites that suddenly close afterwards} is that the Met office has achieved its desperately sought records to promote its agenda then it rapidly seems to disown/expunge (a la Floors Castle, Motherwell:Strathclyde Park etc) if its claims come under too much scrutiny.

If this seems a little far fetched, I put forward in my defence the ridiculous daily high “extremes” at the likes of an atrocious site such as Astwood Bank that no serious meteorologist could defend so why use the site? Or that, yet again, this year’s “record high” was recorded at Faversham despite it coming under the auspices of Reading University whose observers cannot have failed to see the building site works in progress that I personally photographed. Or the almost certainly deliberate relocation of the screen at Hawarden Airport to worsen its quality and elevate readings. Or the non relocation of Chertsey to take it away from the solar panels and on and on. This list of over recording poor quality sites is far too long to be accidental.

Finally, there are many other non Met Office reputable weather stations that can be used to compile historic temperature records despite whatever the Met Office may falsely claim about them being unsuitable. I will soon include reviews of some of these options.

I welcome views about this post and my suggestions of deliberate record seeking.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/02/greycrook-dcnn1979-the-mysterious-disappearances-of-met-office-record-breakers/