Simple FOI Requests for Data Said to Back Non-existent Temperature Stations Refused on “Vexatious” Grounds by UK Met Office

Serious questions about the credibility of its climate reporting are dogging the Met Office once again

The UK Met Office recently declared an average daily maximum temperature of 22.3°C for June 2025 at Lowestoft: Monkton Avenue. But there is no weather station at Lowestoft and hasn’t been since 2010. Over the last 15 years, the temperature measurements published in the Met Office’s Historic Station Database have been invented, or rather estimated according to the State meteorologist with figures from “well-correlated related neighbouring stations”. This explanation might be more plausible if the Met Office could actually name the stations, presumably a simple task with the vital scientific input data readily to hand. Alas, it seems not. A number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for the identity of these well-correlated stations near Lowestoft and other non-existent stations have been denied by the Met Office quoting “vexatious” grounds. It has concluded that the “public interest factors in favour of not responding to the requests outweighed the public interest factors in favour of responding to the requests”.