Met Office Claims Another Temperature Record – in an Overgrown Backyard

Yes, it's another junk site. But what does the Met Office care when it gets the headlines it wants?

Last Monday, the Daily Sceptic revealed how the Met Office claims of “record temperatures” during the recent heatwave were more likely the result of poor siting than climate change. The highest temperature occurred at one of its Class 5 junk stations, Santon Downham in Norfolk.

The same day, the Met Office belatedly discovered an even higher temperature during the hot spell three days earlier. A private back garden in Lingwood near Norwich had, we were assured, recorded a temperature of 37.7C.

It will come as no surprise that Lingwood is yet another Class 5 site, and for very good reasons, as we shall see. According to the rules laid down by the World Meteorological Organisation, Class 5 sites can overstate underlying temperatures by as much as five degrees and therefore should never be used for climatological purposes.

I have since been able to obtain some photographs of the Lingwood site from a friend who lives nearby. They reveal just how bad the siting is there.