Bournemouth:Kings Park DCNN 5604 – Was this the best the Met Office could do? Bournemouth didn’t think so!

50.73426 -1.82379 Met Office assessed CIMO Class 5 Installed 1/1/1980

Bounemouth is one of the many holiday resorts on the south coast of England. Historically such resorts vied with each other for tourism publicity with “sunshine leagues” and high temperature readings. Many dubious temperature claims were often made from sub standard sites and suspected foul play resulted in sunshine recorders being reported as stolen presumably by rival resorts.

The first official weather station in Bournemouth was installed as far back as 1882 and there have been multiple different sites over the years. One by one they were closed down mostly due to development of the area leading to a brief period in 1980 when there were none at all. Clearly something had to be done to restore civic pride leading to the Kings Park site being chosen. Was anything really better than nothing at all? The headline image is somewhat unflattering, the Street View close up is even worse.

Obviously this site had to fall into the lowest possible CIMO assessment of Class 5. Even the most optimistic site inspector could not consider the surrounding poly tunnels, greenhouses, varying vegetation, pathways and lack of security in any way acceptable. There is of course the nearby airport weather station at Hurn ( subject to separate review shortly) but that one is even less representative of the local environment than Kings Park.

Ultimately the accuracy of weather forecasting started to cause concern amongst the local businesses. Bournemouth is actually quite a wet location with heavy though usually short downpours quite frequent. The local solution was to give up on the Met Office and “plough their own furrow.”

“A British coastal resort has launched its own weather forecast, claiming a “disastrous” Met Office prediction put off thousands of potential visitors last year.

Bournemouth set up its own local service – the first of its kind in the country – to counter “unpredictable and confusing forecasts”.

The council said the move followed last year’s Whitsun bank holiday prediction when, it claims, a forecast of showers led 25,000 potential visitors to stay at home, even though Bournemouth’s seven miles of beaches were bathed in sunshine. It estimates the forecast resulted in more than £1m in lost revenue, angering the town’s hoteliers and tourism officials.

The new online service – www.bournemouthweather.co.uk – offers three-day forecasts allowing visitors “to plan their itineraries and wardrobes with confidence”.

All I can add is that if the good burghers of Bournemouth consider the Met Office produces such poor weather forecasts to cause “disastrous” effects, they should also understand how disastrous the effect of such poor sites has on the historic temperature record.