Hurn WMO 03862 – Can this site’s readings be taken seriously? …Yes Minister.

50.779375 -1.836333 Met Office Assessed CIMO Class 4 Archived temperature records from 1/1/1957

Hurn weather station is located in an area better known as the international airport serving the Bournemouth Area. There are 40 jet aircraft in the above image of the southern section of the airport. There are a further 12 visible in the northern section plus numerous propeller driven aircraft. The little red kite marks the Stevenson screen location.

The image below is a closer up view. This shows the screen likely subject to the shade effects of the control tower to the south east and a short distance to the taxiway along which most of those aircraft above will travel to get to the main runway to and from the parking aprons and hangars.

The Met Office will claim this is an “Internationally Agreed Distance from the Runway” which is a non- existent metric. I suggest that most reasonable minded people would consider that, whilst it is important for airports to have accurate advice of the local weather conditions, those same local weather conditions would most certainly not represent the wider natural environment. As demonstrated with video evidence in both my reviews of Coningsby and Leuchars/Heathrow the aircraft gas turbine engines willl have dramatic effects of both wind and temperature on their close environs. As a former senior manager for the Met Office guest posted for the Talkshop, modern instrumentation will readily respond to such transient effects

” For example a site on an airport may present no problems for a MiG; the quicker response of the Pt may catch a quick burst of an aeroplane’s exhaust as it passes en route for take-off or landing.   This will result in a higher Maximum Temperature recorded for that day.“

The Met Office itself readily admits this site does not reflect the wider area by giving it a Class 4 rating which clearly indicates ” 2.5 Class 4 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 2 °C)“

Hurn weather stations readings are, beyond any reasonable doubt, wholly unsuitable both for inclusion into the national historic temperature record nor indeed for any representation of the wider area temperature.

Unfortunately both the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology nor the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero appear to have any whit of understanding of such matters and instead double down on the absurdity as also demonstrated at Leconfield. From https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/weather-statistics

This is how government departments collate “average daily temperatures” for the UK as a whole and by regions. Take SEVENTEEN wholly unrepresentative locations from a completely unrepresentative geographical spread, DOUBLE the readings from FOUR randomly selected sites and then divide by TWENTY TWO. Let this sink in for a while……….

“Double counted stations in the calculations to produce the national averages for temperature correction”

Hurn, a Class 4 aviation site, has its figures doubled and added to a Class 5 Aviation site at RAF Boscombe Down just 31 miles away to represent a large proportion of where people live. I contest that the vast majority of the UK adult population would not find that a remotely acceptable way to derive statistics from which government energy policies are formulated. It lies more in the realms of a humorous “Yes Minister” script than any reality most would be familiar with.

In summary Hurn is a completely unacceptable site for climate purposes that produces readings affected by both its wholly unnatural surroundings, heavy shading, and the influences of multiple aircraft movements in close proximity. These unacceptable readings are then grotesquely manipulated to produce absurd averages (that 100% of statisticians would reject) and then used to formulate policy…..Yes Minister!

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/02/20/hurn-wmo-03862-can-this-sites-readings-be-taken-seriously-yes-minister/