Glenanne No 2 WMO03923 – Tinkering about at the edges.

54.237146 -6.503616 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Temperature records from 1/1/1992

Glenanne weaather station lies 8 miles northwest of Newry and 10 miles southeast of Armagh in Northern Ireland. The surrounding areas are typical of the rolling, green, agricultural land with fields, hedgerows and scattered buildings. This is a “Drumlin” landscape common throughout this part of the region with a “soft” climate of cool summers, mild winters and routinely “damp”. This is a key fully equipped synoptic site typical of many installed towards the latter half of the 20th century.

This review should have been fairly strightforward as, when installed, Glenanne woud have been a reasonably well exposed location in open countryside far from any detrimental effects. Unfortunately times do change in areas outside of the Met Office direct control – a point emphasised by the conditions imposed on US CRN sites.

Firstly the streetview image. The overhead electricity supply line is a regular feature of these sites. The extensive instruentation requires a more powerful supply than the small solar panel/battery pack sufficeient for more basic sites can supply, hence the regular co-location with mains supplies as explained at Port Glenone

The 10 metre high “slim” windmast is a modern replacement for the much bulkier originals. The screen itself can just be discerned to the left and behind a “green cabinet” to the right of centre of the significant security enclosure.

I shall now list some detrimental points, not to simply “nit pick” but rather to put a regular Met Office “Remark” into context. On the positive side, the site is relatively flat as demonstrated by the spot height markers determined from Elevation Finder.. The streetview image does indicate a slight slope but not likely to be a problem on its own.

The initial downside is the tree/shrub line to the northwest which will shield breezes from that direction. Given that noted slight downward slope to the northwesterly direction there is potential for the hedge barrier to hold up cold air drainage in calm conditions and create a frost hollow/pocket though in this region, however, that is likely to be uncommon.

The biggest problem though is the perfectly legitimate development to the southwest (the direction from which comes the prevailing wind) that was outside of any Met Office control. Glen Drums Recycling operates a busy recycling centre covering 12,000 square metres and is only just over 50 metres from the screen as below. This development post dates the screen instalation by 20 years.

Dr Eric Huxter in his excellent Frayedends blog has extensively researched this aspect of extraneous heat sources within the environs of weather stations notably in the Vale of Evesham here. https://frayedendsblog.wordpress.com/2026/04/10/the-vale-of-evesham-revisited/ as well as Kew Gardens here https://frayedendsblog.wordpress.com/2026/09/01/kew-gardens-cimo-site-class-update/. Example below:

For Glenanne, it is likely that the nature of the work on this Glen Drums site will collect and enhance natural warmth and lying upwind could well influence readings at the screen at certain times.

In reality whilst these are all perfectly valid points and will at times affect readings they are unlikely to be regular major distortions. They do, however, rather seem to put the following Met Office comment (deemed worthy of adding to the MIDAS archives “Remarks” section) into sharp focus.

In just the same way as at Carlisle (and many other sites) this does rather smack of a form filling/navel gazing exercise in being seen to be doing something……anything…….. about criticisms of their network rather than viewing the problems from a wider angle. There may, or may not, be problems from one “Green Cabinet” here but the example of Carlisle really makes that seem highly unlikely compared to the problems seen in the bigger picture. Presumably the “inspection” form does not run to viewing the bigger picture. {Site inspections (or rather a notable lack of relevant ones) will be the subject of my next additional review of Eastbourne, a site vying for the honour of the Met Office’s worst ever relocation. }

Glenanne is a perfectly good weather station for its intended principle purpose of immediate weather forecasting but it really is not of the standard and nature required for accurate temperature recording accurate enough for the long term climate record. Tinkering about at the edges with Green Cabinet heat sources (like rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic) really is not going to change that.

Source: https://talkshop.blog/2026/10/24/glenanne-no-2-wmo03923-tinkering-about-at-the-edges/