St Bees Head WMO03210 – A practical study of CIMO Classifications versus Anthropogenic Global Warming.

54.51778 -3.61482 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 1 Installed 1/2/1992 According to digital archives but site known to exist likely since 1718.

St Bees Head is a famous stretch of Heritage coastline just to the south of Whitehaven in Cumbria. Current Met Office records only run from 1992 for the modern No 2 site which is approximately 120 metres inland from its original site at the old lighthouse high on the headland. Although it is known that weather records have been taken at the lighthouse site since its original construction in 1718 there are no online records that I can find either digitized or scanned manual forms.

A table of period data was found indicating availability initially from the lighthouse and subsequently the No 2 site but this information is mostly only via the Met Office’s Exeter Head Office on request.

The 100 metre circled area shows there are no compromising issues, with flat surroundings and no shading issues. Two things to be sure of with this site are that it is rather on the windy side to put it mildly and thus static air overheating is remarkably unlikely.

The daily weather extremes below for the North West England region on 3rd November are not at all unusual for the area, with St Bees marking the lowest maximum achieved in the area. What is more surprising is that all three stations quoted across the five parameters are actually all Class 1 rarities. North West England and Cumbria are well served indeed.

Although the enclosure is not visible from Google Streetview, a walking group very helpfully offer an online photo montage of the area and a peek through the enclosure fence.

St Bees is a fully equipped synoptic site and though it does have extensive paving to access instruments, the amount, in what is a very large and secure enclosure, will not be a problem in the same way as Edinburgh:Goggarbank with more paving within a smaller site and a larger cabinet. The data record looks almost 100% perfect as would be expected of such a prominent site.

St Bees Head is also one of the sites used for representing climate averages for the period 1961 to 2020. Given that digital records are only visible from 1992 this would appear to be one of those sites where creative accounting may have been employed from nearby “well correlated” sites to fabricate over half the accounting period. However, I believe (though cannot prove) that as the data from the original lighthouse site is available to the Met Office, they will have used that to compile the early years for the current site. The sites data will in any event have been homogenised with neighbouring sites – a point to be made in following site reports for the Cumbria area.

Note the above annual mean maximum of 11.85°C and mean minimum of 6.92°C for the 1991 – 2020 period in contrast to the 1961 – 1990 period below:

With equivalent means of 11.23°C and 6.31°C, the Met Office is claiming 60 year mean increments of 0.62°C for maximum temperatures and 0.61°C for minimums. Please note:- I am not endorsing any of these figures as I have not specifically analysed the individual site’s data over the time period available to view, I am merely highlighting the Met Office’s own presentation.

Why the emphasis on these increments if I have not yet verified any trends from my own examination? Well consider how this pristine Cumbrian site compares with a classic London example – Heathrow.

In the case of Heathrow, the numbers are remarkably different. The mean maximum increment is now 1.21°C and the mean minimum is 1.1°C.

How exactly does this alleged solely CO2 induced warming know not to go up the M6 and elevate temperatures in Cumbria? Why such a huge discrepancy? {I will not say “nearly double” as that would be utilising a false base deception so beloved of climate alarmists}

Quite obviously there should not be any significant difference in increment if all other aspects were equal – but they simply are not. St Bees Head represents a rare good quality site whilst the vast majority (over 87%) of Met Office sites are not and fall into CIMO Classes 3 to 5 thus are corrupting their reporting systems.

As I shall demonstrate in following reports on Shap, Walney and Warcop, the key weather stations in Cumbria and the North West of England are generally of a more reliable and higher quality than elsewhere. It is poor site location, poor maintenance, unrealistic site assessments (Heathrow is simply not Class 3) instrument changes and reporting changes that are far more relevant and are artificially enhancing Met Office reporting.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/11/07/st-bees-head-wmo03210-a-practical-study-of-cimo-classifications-versus-anthropogenic-global-warming/