Leek:Thorneclife WMO03330 – The consequences of the Met Office hiding data from the public.

53.12787 -1.98141 Met Office CIMO Class 4 Installed 28/10/2002

The Thorncliffe weather station lies just over 2 miles north east of Leek in Staffordshire. It is a well equipped synoptic site with its prime function for weather forecasting purposes. My review should be fairly straight forward, however, the Met Office seems to be currently very busy “adjusting” all its publicly open data……….and it is certainly not for the public’s benefit.

Firstly to assess the routine basics of the site, the CIMO Class 4 is dictated by the proximity to the Thorncliffe Road and the stone walling. The passing by of road vehicles is fairly obviously not the best of locations which may have been acceptable in the days of sloow reacting Liquid in Glass Thermometers (LIGT) but definitely not so with modern Platinum Resistance Thermometers (PRT).

To clarify this point a PRT takes instant readings every 15 seconds. After 4 readings (just one minute) these are averaged (arithmetic mean) to give 60 readings per hour, 1440 per day. Thus even a relatively short heat pulse of just a few seconds (e.g. a tractor exhaust when the driver pulls his slow moving vehicle over to allow cars to pass) can cause a large temperature elevation. As covered in my report on Meteorological Averaging, the effect of solely extremes controlling derivation of means massively over reacts to such transient effects and distorts data. The 2 field entry gates also suggest vehicular distortions.

The regular adjacent parking for the Severn Trent water pumping works further indicates unnatural modification to the area.

Leek:Thornicliffe is clearly a run of the mill low grade Met Office site, that is worthy enough to supply instant data for immediate forecasting purposes ( largely based on air pressure and wind speed/direction with only approximate temperature readings being required) but not anywhere near good enough for accurate historic climate reporting.

The Met Office is now, however, rather running scared of any analysis of their “Climate Reporting” and going to extraordinary, even irrational, lengths to “cover their backs”. This is where Leek:Thorncliffe oddly enters the equation.

Regular readers will be familiar with the Met Office portrayal of (alleged) climate data for the 60 year period 1961 to 2020. As I often mention there are almost always nearby “Climate Stations” that are the “Undead” and are long closed. In this case Denstone met its maker in 2006 following birth in 1994, whilst Woodford born in 2003, tripped off this mortal coil in 2012. And of course as I have headlined above, Thornclifffe was only installed in 2002.

Pause for thought on this – In 2005 Messrs Dan Hollis and Matthew Perry had their “system” adopted to artificially create data for the climate averages of the UK…….from 1961

What possible rationale in 2004 lay in deriving numbers from 1961 onwards for the likes of Denstone, Leek:Thorncliffe and Woodford that only came into being in 1994, 2002 and 2003 respectively? Who actually felt it was acceptable to continue to fabricate data for the last 19 years at Denstone when just a few miles away there is an impeccable operational station at Ipstones Edge from 1994 that is totally ignored?

So what does Thorncliffe’s data look like? Well from 1991 to 2020 it is claimed to be this.

And what about the period from 1961 to 1990……….Ah well, just as at Charlwood (Gatwick) the Met office has now conveniently DELETED it all so that it now looks like this.

Unlike Charlwood, Grok AI was unable to successfully interrogate the Internet Archive/Wayback Machine to recreate the original files. Though I know such data did exist, I cannot screen capture everything and the Met Office knows that. The argument that the Met Office has simply removed artificially created data and demonstrates an intent to improve presentation collapses when found that Denstone (installed 1994) magically retains its 1961 – 1990 despite it all predating its existence. How long before this is deleted now that I have reported it?

The Met Office is systematically deleting historic data. The reasons why it is doing so are the real questions.

Why is the Met Office employing non meteorologists (who are simply propagandists) to claim anyone who questions the veracity of their data is a “Disinformer” . Who exactly is Tabitha Aldrich-Smith (“No other posts found“) who posts such Misinformation with seeming impunity?.

Why does the UK Meteorological service feel the need to employ someone – using taxpayer’s money – with a CV like this to justify themselves? I would be fascinated to know what the inflated salary for a brand marketeer is.

“Senior executive with +15 year career at the helm of the corporate brand, marketing and communications function for B2B tech, space and connectivity organisations. Unites customers, employees, investors and stakeholders around a compelling brand, mission and purpose, building relationships and creating clarity of ambition and direction.“

The Met Office clearly is running scared and is resorting to deception, deletion and distortion of data to ineptly try to protect its own grotesque failings. I openly challenge the Met Office to justify their behaviour. In the meantime the public cannot trust them as is demonstrated at Leek.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/17/leekthorneclife-wmo03330-the-consequences-of-the-met-office-hiding-data-from-the-public/