Nantyglo DCNN8400 – Certainly unlikely to suffer from Urban Heat Island Effect. Replacing a high altitude site with another high altitude site.

51.78567 -3.18506 Met Office CIMO assessment Class 2 Installed 24/10/2024

Nantyglo is a very new weather station that lies just 1.6 km/1 mile west of Ebbw Vale in the historic county of Monmouthshire. This one really does buck the trend of modern sites – it is the highest in Wales at 395 metres amsl and is certainly unlikely to be influenced by urban development. Clearly the Welsh golfing community is made of stern stuff as this site lies within the West Monmouthshire Golf Course – the highest in the entire UK. No doubt there are breathtaking views all around in summer but I suspect this is a very bleak spot for a round of 18 in the winter.

This new weather station was installed in 2024 and may at first glance seem to be a welcome change from modern sites being in favorably warmer sites than discontinued predecessors. Certainly lying by the 2nd tee it is unlikely to record warm but it actually might be warmer than it may have been elsewhere.

Nantyglo is actually a replacement site for Tredegar: BRYN BACH PARK NO 2  which was almost equally high at 360 metres amsl and closed 8/3/2022 being just 5.6 km/ 3.5 miles to the west as below.

For a pleasant change Nantyglo does look to be in a good class 2 site (an improvement on the old heavily wooded Tredegar location) and it is perfectly reasonable to have higher altitude sites. Over 15% of Wales is over 400 metres and nearly a third is over 300 metres amsl. This makes recording the weather, and thence climate over time, highly relevant.

It is worth noting that the Met Office quotes temperatures taken by site with no adjustment made for elevation and it is these “raw” readings that are ultimately archived. For the purposes of official record highs/lows any stations above 500 metres are not included. However, what actually gets put into the Climate Research Unit’s database at the UEA in Norwich is neither the most transparent nor consistent detail despite what the Met Office and others may claim. As regular readers will know, the government minister responsible is perfectly at ease with the “denial” of data deletion and the Talkshop is no stranger to “interventions” designed to “hide” what really should be publicly available data. Knowledge of adjustments, infills, acceptances and homogenisation is for the chosen few – the rest of us are simply there to obey their “commandments”.

In summary Nantyglo is a reasonably representative site, better than its predecessor but sadly still adherent to an outdated naturally aspirated Victorian Stevenson Screen housing 21st Century recording instruments that are now being used to give non-averaged instant readings. Sadly only one very small step in the right direction.