Lakenheath and Mildenhall – Two of the sites the Met Office prefer to keep quiet about…for now.

The above map is the 8:00 GMT screenshot 21/6/2025 from weatherobs, showing most of the UK automatic reporting weather stations. This includes many non-CIMO assessed sites, typically aviation ones, such as London City Airport and East Midlands Airport. Just to the west of Thetford (where the frequent regional and national daily record breaker Class 5 Santon Downham lies) are also RAF/USAF bases at Mildenhall and Lakenheath. Note how markedly different these latter’s readings are – Brooms Barn just to the west of Bury St Edmunds shows a 3°C cooler temperature. Why such discrepancies and why do these hot spots never appear on the daily listings?

Firstly a brief analysis of Lakenheath. From the CEDA archive of Lakenheath we are supplied with location coordinates of 52.41958, 0.61758 which take you to this site below

There most certainly is no weather station at that location which is in fact 3.76 radial kilometres from where the actual site really is. How do I know where the weather station actually is? Let’s imagine “a little bird told me” and leave it at that.

I seriously doubt the CIMO regulations intended a category for this type of site so naturally the Met Office did not bother. The wider angle view shows the full extent of this major active military airfield including the non-existent site.

Mildenhall was even more elusive. The Met Office CEDA archive does not even show an operational site recording temperatures at all there anymore. Obviously such a major strategic airfield will have its own military aviation facilities but they definitely would not be broadcasting to weatherobs. The Met Office WOW site offered this outline map with the blue dot signifying the site a long way from the airfield.

Further examination offered this Met Office site but with the annotation “This site is not reporting observations” On detailed inspection no weather station appeared to be at the quoted address.

A trawl through the manual archives and another anonymous “whisper in my ear” suggested the real site of the current operational station was indeed at the airport, supplying hourly transmissions picked up by weatherobs and concurred with the original hand written details.

The obvious questions are why does the Met Office not openly publicise the temperatures recorded at these sites at the moment – I doubt such figures are state secrets relative to the military site’s security any more than for example Coningsby. So far this year both these sites have recorded well above the quoted daily maximums. Whilst “news” broadcasters proclaimed “Temperatures reached a peak of 32.2C (89.9F) at Kew Gardens and Heathrow Airport in west London.” it actually peaked at 33.1°C at Lakenheath.

This is not normally like the Met Office to shy away from another record breaking day so there must be a reason why – the answer can be found in their own past publications.

“ It is unavoidable that some sites do not meet all these requirements, particularly where a station set up for one purpose gradually takes on a different role, for example an airport site originally established for aviation observing may become a key synoptic or climate station while suffering the effects of urbanisation. A few sites are in city centres and may be unsuitably located close to large obstacles or even on the roof of a building.“

This clearly demonstrates the point that weather station’s immediate locality and setting is crucially important to the accuracy of records. Many weather stations were on the roofs of buildings (notably many formerly described as “weather centres”) and literally hundreds were installed for the early days of aviation and continued to be used. Mildenhall and Lakenheath were originally installed for solely aviation purposes and demonstrate their unsuitability for use as “climate stations”. That other sites were retained for such climate reporting aptly demonstrates why all time highs were set at such locations such as England (Coningsby), Wales (Hawarden) and Scotland (Charterhall)

For the time being the Met Office still do not use many of these aviation sites (they have attempted to do so in the past notably at Plymouth:Kinterbury Point) though I suspect they might soon start doing so in their endless pursuit of scare mongering record breaking. The April 1949 Camden Square record appeared determined to be beaten by the generators parked alongside the St James’s Park London site until it was exposed on “X” obliging the Met Office to publish the temporary withdrawal of its data. The June record of Southampton:Mayflower Park stubbornly refuses to be legitimately broken so I confidently expect any means possible to be conjured up if not this year, very soon.

This all highlights the Met Office’s current major problem and why they are producing bogus economic reports on just how much “value” they bring to the UK economy. A Met Office “Media Advisor”, Marco Petagna, posts almost daily on social media. Only a tiny part of this official output is concerned with weather forecasting. Aspects of “Climate Change” with concocted exaggerated bizarre records (the wettest 3:00 am on the first Tuesday of a month without an “R” in it in a leap year for example) almost daily are the principle fare of his posts with emphasis on all “related” matters however tenuous, including reservoir levels, renewable generation and most notably the benefits the Met Office gives to all these highlighted by their latest policy drive.

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/news-and-media/media-centre/corporate-news/2025/met-office-will-deliver-more-impact-innovation-and-value-as-new-strategy-launched

Essentially, accurate weather forecasts are now much more freely and cheaply available from non-government sources than ever before and even the BBC no longer uses the Met Office for most forecast presentations. Any round of spending cuts could now reveal that most of the Met Office is actually no longer required for its forecasting purposes with money saved from axing a large part of it diverted to more deserving causes. The Met Office knows this and so is desperately trying to ensure its future at all costs by creating the “essential” need for its “Climate” function. Predicting next week’s weather is deemed far less important than predicting what the weather may, or may not, be in 2060 it would seem.

Meanwhile the Met Office proclaimed the hottest temperature of the year at Charlwood yesterday of 33.2 °C whilst its aviation buddy at Lakenheath recorded 33.7 °C…..I bet they are itching to use it when the time is right!

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/06/22/lakenheath-and-mildenhall-two-of-the-sites-the-met-office-prefer-to-keep-quiet-about-for-now/