Machrihanish WMO 03111 – What’s in a name? Well Scotland’s longest aircraft runway, the US Navy SEALS and nuclear weapons – perfectly natural then?

I often wonder what casual readers of the Met Office’s daily highlighting of “extremes” on both their own website and social media platforms such as “X” actually make of the locations with often unfamiliar names. Personally, as an English “southerner”, I am quite unfamiliar with places such as Campbeltown. The Mull of Kintyre may have been immortalised by the famous Paul McCartney and Wings song and still conjures up visions of a wild and remote though romantic location but most probably do not know where it actually is. Even for those readers made aware that Machrihanish is close to the main town on the Mull, they are unlikely to really know what this weather station is likely to represent…perhaps a rural village location?

55.44080 -5.69691 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Archive temperature records from 1/1/1965

RAF Machrihanish at its peak operation hosted the longest runway (11/29 @ 10,003 feet) in all of Scotland. Such was the involvement of the US Navy and Special Forces during the Cold War that

“During the 1960s, it was redeveloped and became an RAF station and was made available to the US Navy as a nuclear weapons store and base for components of the US Navey SEALs Naval Special Warfare Group 2.“

Needless to say this was a key strategic military site with the highest possible levels of security and regular and intensive operations. Modern history eventually saw the military withdrawal and sale of part of the airfield to form the civilian Campbeltown Airport operating from a shorter runway though the full length was retained for standby. However, the western end of the site/runway (unsold) including the weather station retains very high security and at operational readiness.

In close up the weather site appears to still be in its original location alongside the now unused sections of runway and taxiway.

Obviously the large areas of surrounding tarmac and ground vehicle activity mark down this site – below are the 100 metre and 30 metre radius circles.

Classes 1 and 2 are immediately ruled out for the obvious encroachment of tarmac. Had it not been for the former/little used roadway running around the south to west boundary this may have made Class 3 but inevitably Class 4 and its attendant “Class 4 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 2 °C)” is the correct assessment. Thus yet again despite both the aviation and synoptic forecasting benefits of this site, its temperature readings are unsuitable for compilation of the historic temperature record. This site will not be included in the Surface Stations Project reconstruction.

Finally, referring back to my introductory point regarding the public’s lack of awareness of Met Office site quality, how many would regularly accept Met Office data if they knew all the above reality, after all what is in a name? Well “Campbeltown Airport” evokes an entirely different mental image to “Machrihanish”, Mull of Kintyre. As I noted in my recent report on North Wyke, does “Chivenor” really come across as a military site whilst RAF Chivenor certainly would. What does the site name “Valley” conjure up – a verdant dale or sleepless nights from the “deafening noise” of Jet aircraft? Whilst Londoners would mostly know that Northolt is really RAF Northolt , I suspect only a small number of them would be fully aware of the nature of “Cranwell“. If named “RAF Cranwell” , perhaps even the charlatans at World Weather Attribution would not be able to get away with their deceptions to a better informed public.

There are of the order of 140 aviation sites in the Met Office Climate and Synoptic Weather Stations used in the compilation climate averages – I suggest the Met Office names them more honestly.

CODECIL: Met Office Daily Extremes for each UK region on 31st October 2025 as an example.

Chivenor…………………RAF Chivenor.

Kirkwall………………….RAF Grimsetter.

Lossiemouth………….RAF Lossiemouth.

Leuchars……………….RAF Lossiemouth.

Leconfield……………..RAF Leconfield.

Coningsby……………..RAF Coningsby.

Pershore (again)…….RAF Throckmorton.

St Athan……………….RAF St Athan.

Shoeburyness……….MOD Shoeburyness Range.

Glasgow……………….Royal Ordnance Factory Bishopton

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/01/machrihanish-wmo-03111-whats-in-a-name-well-scotlands-longest-aircraft-runway-the-us-navy-seals-and-nuclear-weapons-perfectly-natural-then/