Dunbarney, South Hill DCNN 1473 – The new “2 metre rule” and a case of hidden identity.

56.34410 -3.4410 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Temperature records from 15/7/2014

The Surface Stations Project is intended to assess the quality and data representation of each and every of the approximately 380 to 390 UK Met Office weather stations. I apologise if at times these reports may get tedious or boringly repetitive but unfortunately so many Met Office stations (87%) are sub standard and a ridiculously large proportion are in completely inappropriate amateur back gardens sites. Dunbarney, South Hill is another of these domestic sites that is so bad it almost appears the Met Office are actually trying to disown it.

Unsurprisingly this site is rated Class 5 and thus completely unregulated. As an important point to note on this, in 2022 I queried with the BBC some claims (by their “Verify” journalist Marco Silva) of record breaking sites in Italy meeting WMO standards. I referred them to the CIMO regulations indicating that Class 5 has no regulation and simply indicates not meeting Class 4. They declined to comment and simply suggested I take my “issue” up with the WMO – so much for responsibility in reporting. The takeaway from all this being that the general public are simply led to assume “official” government agency sites will be of a good quality – an appeal to authority of sorts – when in fact the vast majority of them are very poor indeed. Dunbarney, South Hill ranks as terrible.

The above image shows the outer 30 metres radius circle moving inwards to 10 metres and then just 3 metres (10 feet). The innermost circle indicates the entirety of the screen is in very deep shade despite the shadows not being long and, in running northward, indicating a midday image. Hedging runs to the north, east and south close to the screen with extensive shrubs and trees west with the house and large tarmac driveway to the west and north west. The 2018 image below offers greater clarity.

Given that the CIMO regulations were fully in force when this site was originally installed in 2014 (it does not appear in historical imagery before then thus it is not an “adopted” existing site) why would the Met Office add such a compromised site? What benefit can this site offer other than almost certainly inaccurate readings and unquestionably elevated night time minima distorting averages? Perhaps the embarrassment of such a site becoming known led them to quietly almost ignore it.

“we don’t have any climate stations at or nearby that location” Really? Oh yes you do!

Putting in the suggested alternative option of a postcode (for ease of finding I used the one for the local primary school ) brought back to life the local zombie.

Perth weather station 3 miles away originally passed away on the 31/12/1979, almost 45 years ago. I am still awaiting answers to my contesting the Met Office’s refusal to supply the details of which current stations provide readings to contrive climate averages for such undead weather stations like Perth. I suspect their reticence in disclosure is because they will have to admit they are using readings from the likes of Dunbarney to homogenise with those around in their contrived melting pot. The result of that probability being that even Class 1 and 2 good sites’ readings would be knowingly (deliberately?) contaminated with data from completely unregulated back garden dross. I am advised answers from an “independent” review are due by 10/6/2025 whereupon I shall advise of their, if any, response.

So where does my cryptic headline about the new, post Covid, 2 metre rule come from? Well, despite numerous weather stations being covertly relocated over large distances (without the Met Office disclosing the point and seamlessly bonding two different data sets together examples being Cambridge NIAB, Stornoway, Braemar and lots of others) this Dunbarney site has been shown to very recntly be relocated.

The Met Office dutifully recorded that the screen was moved just 2 metres to get it away from that pesky bush casting its shade at midday. As a result this will have changed the CIMO Classification from an unregulated Class 5 to an equally unregulated Class 5……no significant improvement at all.

In summary, and for brevity, the Dunbarney, South Hill is……junk.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/05/28/dunbarney-south-hill-dcnn-1473-the-new-2-metre-rule-and-a-case-of-hidden-identity/