Lyth No 2 DCNN9277 – A very good example of how things should be done.

58.54924 -3.20653 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 3 installed 28/10/2021

Lyth No 2 is a notably remote and very modern weather station that lies just 6 miles inland west of Wick in north eastern Scotland. The original Lyth weather site was a rain gauge only site elsewhere that closed in 1951 so there are no prior comparative records. This is a very interesting site where I have (unsuccessfully) tried to contact the site owner as they are clearly a dedicated and diligent observer privately taking a very wide range of observations well beyond most “amateur” sites abilities. If any reader can put me in touch with them it would be most appreciated. This site, subjectively, strikes me as “proper” meteorology as I would like to explain below.

This is how the site is described on the Met Office Weather Observations website:

“Located in the far north of Scotland in the county of Caithness. The topography of the site is generally flat open fields and farmland. There is a line of trees just over 1km to the west and woodland situated on a slight slope 2km to the ESE. There are a few well scattered and distant properties within a 4km radius of the site mainly to the south and north west, the closest being a house 190m to the south and a bungalow with farm buildings 160m to the north east. A line of hills, which include the highest peaks in Caithness, Morven which rises to 706m (2316ft) and Maiden Pap which rises to 484m (1587ft) are located 45km to the SW.“

It is unusual to get any site descriptions on this website, to be this precise is exceptional in itself. This “bio” is usually supplied by the site owner and such openness is very refreshing to read. Above and beyond this there is detailed site photography.

First point to note is obviously two separate screens, one utilising a Platinum Resistance Thermometer (PRT) and Data Logger (to the right with the lower mounted control unit) and the other to the left probably still operating Liquid in Glass Thermometry. The sunshine recorder is very well sited and constructed. What is more unusual is the additional recording instrumentation and wind mast as below.

The Met Office states the “reason for running site” as “Enthusiast”. This is not your average enthusiast, this is an expert meteorologist. There are precisely zero missing readings in the site’s (albeit relatively short) observational history.

The CIMO regulations are biased towards a tape measure mentality leading to some very dubious quality sites being regarded well above their real ranking notably the atrocious Heathrow making Class 3. Conversely some good sites (notably Stowe) seem to be almost irrationally marked down for no obvious reasons. In the case of Lyth, CIMO regulations do not allow higher than Class 3 simply because of proximity to the road and house but it seems seriously unlikely that in such a rural location these would make any difference. Below is the only street view image available that was from before the 2nd automatic unit and wind-mast were installed.

To put the site into perspective, spinning the street view around reveals the open nature of the site. It is difficult to consider this site likely to suffer from extraneous or transient effects. UHI is really out of the question and I doubt much travels on the road.

My interest in this site is the two separate instrument sets (PRT and LIGT) alongside each other in a good quality site with evidently good custodianship. In the absence of outside influences this should be a good reference site to compare different instruments despite its relatively short lifespan so far.

I do feel that although this may seem an obscure site it is far more reliable for climate recording than its neighbouring sites of greater longevity. Again, if anyone can put me in touch with the “Enthusiast” (more likely expert) running this site it would be much appreciated. The Met office does have some good sites though in this case I would put the quality solely down to the site owner.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/10/13/lyth-no-2-dcnn9277-a-very-good-example-of-how-things-should-be-done/