From Tallbloke’s Talkshop

 By Ray Sanders

In my original review of Newton Rigg with its “creative accounting” I made the following comment. –

“Another aspect I also took the Met Office to task with was their “Historic Stations” page and demonstrated how misleading it was notably with its portrayal of a long closed site at Lowestoft. I similarly expected changes to this web page especially as I have extensively contested the data presentation such as at Braemar and Southampton amongst others. However, it seems the Met office are not only willing to continue with this web page’s charade of being actually factual but also to extend elements of this misrepresentation throughout their systems.“

The Met Office subsequently and covertly deleted the “visibility” of data post site closure at Lowestoft, Nairn, and Paisley thus starting the collapsing of the house of cards. Newton Rigg’s data, however, still remains and is continuing to be fabricated with temperatures, rainfall, frost days and precipitation being recently added for September 2025. This retention warranted further investigation.

In order to ensure the data is captured, below is all the suitably asterisked fabricated data since station closure. {The notation of “provisional” for the most recent fabricated data takes irony to new levels}

To further ensure clarity, below is the final “end data” marking the demise of Newton Rigg’s archived temperature recordings.

Ever since 19th July 2021 all data for Newton Rigg is fabricated data – but that is actually nothing new for Newton Rigg at all. Despite the Historic Station Data showing a continuous record from 1959 there are in fact whole years when no archived data whatsoever was being recorded as shown below.

As well as there being precisely ZERO readings for 1987, the surrounding years were remarkably sparse for data. The successful days of actually taking any temperature readings were as follows

1985 – 212 days, 1986 – 77 days, 1987 – ZERO, 1988 – 124 days, 1989 – 233 days.

In reality the observation’s standard of this site was very poor indeed particularly so for the generally much better 20th century era. Looking at the full historic data record shows literally over a hundred monthly estimated readings. Even going back prior to the Historic quoted record period, in 1946 just 30 days readings were actually taken. All of this does bring into question why the Met Office feel Newton Rigg warrants such high profile treatment. The site, in theory, has readings all the way back to 1883 (then known as Newton Reigny) but has actually had major long distance and not openly shown re-locations. The digital archives attribute all the digitalised data from 1959 to the last location, but this is completely incorrect.

Here is the 1959 digital starting data that any meteorology or climate science student would be presented with – note quoted coordinates and elevation that I have highlighted.

Manuscript copies in the deeper archives, however, indicate different sites (one shown on my original earlier report) and another here with accurate coordinates down to the second. Ironically, I know of many long-term temperature graphs based on Newton Rigg’s data which are clearly rather pointless given the multiplicity of sites

Even more recently, notes can be found of a relocation from within its college base to outside the grounds.

2000-08-18

Current

SITE INFORMATION

GAUGES 604741 AND 604742 AT GRID REF 3493E 5310N ELEVATION 169M

If all this seems erratic, poor observational frequency is one problem but lack of observational ability is even worse. A point I regularly make is that if readings are sporadic, how trustworthy are the few that are taken? Amidst tens of noted excuses for not taking readings the archives shows multiple deletions of spurious numbers. The height of absurdity is surely this below. Reading/using the wrong instruments really should never happen…….but for two straight months?

2005-04-01

2005-06-30

MISSING DATA

MAXIMUM TEMPS DELETED.HAD BEEN USING DRY BULB THERMOMETER

What is known is that Newton Rigg (formerly Newton Reigny) has had numerous different locations over a surprisingly large area. Its observation standards were very poor – especially so for the time in stark contrast with exemplary sites such as Class 1 Cawood.. How the Met Office has gone on to show this site in terms of long-term averages is equally perverse.

Despite its “Historic” status and being operational since the latter 19th century, Newton Rigg was not selected to be a “Location Specific Long Term” climate average site. In lieu the Met Office chose other sites to provide 60 year rolling averages for the period 1961 to 2020 as follows:

Shap – installed 21 years after the start of the averaging period in 1982 . Great Dun Fell No 2 – Installed 32 years after the start of the averaging period in 1993. Keswick – Installed 22 years after the period start in 1983. Warcop Range – also installed in 1983 and Ambleside – DECEASED 31st December 1970 but still Zombie-like producing averages.

For a final confirmation below are the images of the Newton Rigg site – firstly when still operational from April 2021.

And subsequent to closure from Sept 2021

Thus despite being the only (almost) continuously running weather station in the area, its data has been ignored for area representation BUT will be used to “fill in” the period gaps for the other stations for the multiple missing decades of data.

All this comes back to the Met Office’s refusal to answer my Freedom of Information requests on the grounds that I was “Vexatious”, and it was not in the “Public Interest”. In deleting from public view, the data for Lowestoft, Paisley and Nairn the Met Office has tacitly admitted they cannot substantiate their fabrication. My FOI requests have been demonstrated to be in the public interest and caused action to be taken. I will now resubmit an FOI requesting the details of the “Well Correlated” stations still being used to fabricate Newton Rigg’s data AND if refused further legal action will be considered.

The Met Office is not above the law.