Strathy East DCNN0398 – Primary source data?

58.56107 -3.99146 Met Office CIMO assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1993

Strathy East weather station has the distinction of being the most northerly Met Office weather station of mainland Great Britain. It lies almost exactly 600 miles from the most southerly mainland site at RNAS Culdrose. It is also a rare example of a site that has recently been much improved but ironically not by the Met Office themselves.

A near neighbour of mine (a Scot) who often proof reads my posts for me assures me the nearby beach to this weather station is one of the most beautiful in all of the UK. He claims that under clear skies in June it really does not seem to get genuinely dark and being Bortle Class 1 the stars are countless. Google street view offers this image…….with not a sole in sight, a delightful gem. One to add to the bucket list.

Whilst I am frequently critical of many domestic “back garden” sites (notably the likes of Astwood Bank) this Strathy back garden is certainly nothing like as typically enclosed and cossetted as so many are. It is a working agricultural site with the screen originally close to the owners house. In the image below the screen is visible just to the left of the overhead services pole (n.b. not a wind mast).

Clearly this is not a great site by any means but given the “breezy” location it is unlikely to suffer from static air within the screen causing overheating effects. Interestingly for over 30 years, the Met Office were prepared to accept data from what is realistically Class 5. However, the above image does not conform to the headline aerial image with the screen being now shown a considerable distance further away from the house. An archive note confirms:

2023-09-10

Current

SITE INFORMATION

SCREEN MOVED ON THIS DATE AT OBSERVERS REQUEST – APPROX 25 METRES TO THE EAST – TO MAKE ROOM FOR A NEW ROAD.

The observer redeveloped the entrance to his own home and arranged the relocation. The ground workings were actually captured by the street view camera over the period. The new screen is now just visible to the above right of the cattle feeder. This image falsely suggests closer proximity of the feeder than the screen actually is at approximately 15 metres to the rear.

The site is now assessed as improved but still only Class 4. Oddly the observations record is by no means exemplary with most years having many omitted days readings e.g 23 missing days in 2024, 40 missing in 2023, 29 missing in 2022. This is not a recent phenomenon in 2005 there were 61 missing days and 30 omissions in 2006.

Thus, despite temperature records only starting in 1993, a poor likely Class 5 location until recently and a rather patchy observation record, Strathy East is elevated to a wide area representative “Location Specific Climate Averages” proffering 30 year rolling averages from 1961 to 2020. The “well correlated” other stations likely to be used in filling the regular readings gaps are notably distant – up to 47 miles away and even not on the mainland.

Almost inevitably the “data” (or more likely better described as constructed evidence) indicates 0.82°C and 0.68 °C increments in daily mean maximum and minimum respectively in the 1991 to 2020 period over 1961 to 1990.

Or to put it another way……. a dubious level of readings from a poorly sited station with omissions filled in by fabrications from remote sites had these “figures” compared with data compiled from unknown locations for 32 years before its own creation……..not very scientific is it?

I have no wish to be intrusive but the image below is freely available to view online. Who would bet the farm (to the second decimal place) on occasional data from a site like this if they actually knew?

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/12/10/strathy-east-dcnn0398/