Ryhill DCNN4065 – An object lesson in how to get things so wrong for no good reasons.

53.62840 -1.39433 Met Office CIMO assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1994 {Automated 24/11/2010*}

Ryhill weather station lies about 6 miles to the south east of Wakefield and a similar distance to the north east of Bingley. Although surrounded by a number of medium sized towns and villages, it is set in a flat, open and rural location to the rear of a small holding. This had the potential to be a good site and fully representative of rural West Yorkshire. Instead it failed to get above a poorly rated site Class 4 despite everything it had going for it. Classic Met Office standards in several ways.

There are two obvious detrimental features demonstrated by the 30 and 10 metre delineated area above. The first inevitability is changing ground cover which historical imagery shows dramatically changes over the years and is indicated by the tramlines in the regular cropping. This site alternates between bare earth, cereal crops and pasture at times.

The bigger problem is locating the screen alongside the junction of two trackways. This leads to all the potential corrupted readings by motorised farm vehicles, regularly passing or even stopping with engines running alongside. Whilst traditional LIG thermometers may not have readily been compromised in the past, modern PRTs will definitely respond – typically reminiscent of Cavendish and the issue of just 60 corrupted seconds setting daily records and means.

Whilst there are always ground cover changes at working farm sites, it really is inexcusable to locate the screen in such a prone position. Clearly this site is not short of available space. In the same way as at sites such as Faskally or Libanus, a modest relocation would have vastly improved the situation and class 2 or at worst 3 seems reasonably possible. There frequently seems to be unnecessary consideration given to ease of access for observers over siting quality for manual sites but in this case the site was automated in 2010. {* I am noting these transfers to automatic in future reports and will update earlier reports over time relative to issues raised here}

The site in manual reporting days (2009 street view image) appears located to the rear of the main house.

As ever, this site reports for climate averages to other sites though in this case to spectacularly absurd standards that border on the surreal.

Amongst the comparative “nearest climate stations” to rural Ryhill are in the huge urban heat island of Class 5 Sheffield – regularly featuring its attendant ice cream van. This site is not remotely comparative to Ryhill in climatology terms.

Or the bizarrely located Bingley No 2 just over “3 metres” from Bradford West Electricity Sub Station and equally incomparable to Ryhill. If the Met Office considers these two sites are “well correlated” there are massive problems with their competence.

However, at least the above two weather stations have the distinction of currently existing unlike the aviation sites of Church Fenton and Finningly which closed in 2013 and 1995 respectively. If the inclusion of these two long closed sites seems odd, the deliberate exclusion of comparison of data with the very long term nearby Class 1 Cawood with its exemplary observations record for over 85 years in a rural site is almost impossible to comprehend.

But the “coup de grâce” has to rest with the inclusion of climate averages for Huddersfield Oakes which has NOT RECORDED ANY READINGS AT ALL SINCE 30 SEPTEMBER 1986. In just over a years time the site will celebrate the half century since its demise ……….and yet the Met Office still expects to be taken seriously.

This exclusion of the likes of Cawood and zombification of the likes of Huddersfield is clear evidence that the Met Office has long ceased to be either a reliable or credible organisation.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/09/16/ryhill-dcnn4065-an-object-lesson-in-how-to-get-things-so-wrong-for-no-good-reasons/