Carlton-in-Cleveland DCNN2256 – Another back garden amateur site and the public still think the Met Office is “Professional”

Met Office quoted coordinates  54.42795  -1.21751 & CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1991

For the first time I have to admit to not being able to identify this screen from either google or bing maps. The quoted coordinates above do not seem to be correct or possibly I simply cannot discern the screen from them possibly in shade. If anyone else can identify the site I would greatly appreciate their locators. Fortunately, the Met Office WOW website has uploaded images presumably by the “Enthusiast” running this site.

What these images demonstrate is an impeccably well kept screen in a very poor site. From all three angles these images are taken there are hedges likely over 2.5 metres tall. It is reasonable to assume the owners house itself will make up the fourth side.

There will frequently be no natural wind in this garden so overheating of the screen will be an inevitability. The completely unnatural surroundings will retain stored daytime heat similarly raising night time minima. This type of location falls well short of basic guidance even for amateur sites and is hopelessly below any form of acceptable official Met Office classification.

I quote from the above Royal Meteorological Society’s guide.

“Siting and Exposure
The issues of siting and exposure are concerned with ensuring that everyone is recording the same thing, the same way, with the same limitations to allow intercomparison of data. Without some minimum standards of site and exposure it is difficult, if not impossible, to compare one station’s data with another as it is specific in nature to the station recording it and can only serve to show changes and variations there.”

Clearly the Met Office did not get the above message from the RMETs especially this following advice:

” Standard siting and exposure of instruments is therefore the bedrock of the entire observing process: neglect these matters and data become much less useful to the wider community…………Ideally, the screen should be fixed in an open place with good airflow on a level surface above short grass at the standard height. It should be no nearer than 30 metres (100 feet) from extensive concrete, aggregate or a
road surface. Measure the height of surrounding objects above screen level: the distance from the screen to these objects should be at least two times these heights……”

Regarding the observational standards of this site, they are impeccable to the extent that when there was a period of missed maximum only readings from 29/9/2017 to 12/12/2017 this will almost certainly have been when the LIGT was replaced by a PRT as part of the Met Office’s instrumentation upgrade of all manual recording sites. All other times readings were almost perfect but no regularity of readings can in any way make up for a poor over recording location such as this.

The sad irony is that the “Enthusiast” is almost certainly a dedicated individual probably doing his/her best. That the Met Office has chosen to adopt such a site is a poor reflection on them and not the site owner. It cannot be over emphasised though that I am not attempting a “hatchet” job on these types of site but the simple fact is that the general public is being coerced into making significant lifestyle changes and potential financial detriment based on what can only loosely be described as “data” from inadequate and unsatisfactory sites such as these.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/06/27/carlton-in-cleveland-dcnn2256-another-back-garden-amateur-site-and-the-public-still-think-the-met-office-is-professional/