From The Tallbloke’s Talkshop

 By Ray Sanders

Of the first 27 days of 2026 so far, the daily maximum temperature has been recorded at just two different Met Office weather stations for 16 of those days.

The first of those two is “Scilly, St Marys” on 3 occasions – “St Mary’s Airport” on 2 occasions – “Isles of Scilly” on 3 occasions and “St Mary’s” on 4 occasions.

Yes, the same site has been quoted with 4 separate names presumably to hide the fact that it is such a regular star performer and quite obviously unrepresentative of anywhere other than a very tiny part of a very tiny island.

The inclusion of Scilly in national climate records is genuinely a silly practise. However, it is the regular appearance on 4 occasions this year of Standard Aero’s Fleetlands Heliport at Gosport that is even more concerning.

For the 19th, 20th, 23rd and now 27th of January the UK national high has been recorded at Gosport, Fleetlands complete with its micro-climate by the shore of Portsmouth harbour and its helipads in regular use.

The question of what exactly this official Met Office weather station is, and has been, recording is highly debatable. The site was only installed in 2011 and there are no archived temperature readings available to view online. It is perversely CIMO rated Class 3 by the Met Office presumably on the basis that harbour beach shorelines are acceptable representations of the natural surroundings.

So, what of its temperature readings on the 27th of January relative to its surroundings. There are lots of Private Weather Stations (PWS) in the immediate vicinity to compare the site’s readings with. Firstly, the hourly readings for Gosport Fleetlands which showed a rounded 11.1°C at 15:00 GMT – a full 1°C below its alleged recorded peak.

With the blue dot showing the Fleetlands Met Office location there are 5 PWS in very close proximity reporting to the Met Office WOW site.

The nearest PWS to the northeast is “Birdworld Estate”. Its hourly peak was just 10.7°C being 1.4°C lower than Fleetland’s reported peak.

The Birdworld Estate site recorded the highest of all those neighbouring sites. All other local sites recorded cooler than even the Birdworld Estate site.

The graphs can all be viewed online at the WOW site to corroborate this. Perhaps the most damning indictment comes from the site known as “Gosport Weather” which broadcasts all its data in real time online together with daily summaries on its own website.

This site noted a maximum for 27/01/2026 {shown below as “Yest High”} of just 10.9°C. – a full 1.2°C lower than Fleetlands.

It is highly pertinent to note that the Met Office frequently criticises PWS for over-recording temperatures due to poor siting – how ironic.

Is it realistic to assume that all those surrounding PWS are wrongly recording lower than the “Official” Met Office site {and I have noted this on every day this month that Fleetlands records the national highest temperature} or is it more likely that the Met Office site is both in an artificial micro-climate next to a major helicopter maintenance plant with regular helicopter movements that is at fault?

Above is the vicinity of Gosport Fleetlands Weather Station just in case the Met Office do not know where their weather stations are located.

If this seems to be nit picking, I again point out that the Met Office averaging system solely responds to “extremes” and changing sampling points to those likely to record more extreme has a significant effect. The Met Office quotes annual average temperature changes to the 2nd decimal place so differences of 1.2°C on a regular basis are highly significant.

For the Fifth time in the last 10 days Gosport Fleetlands has hit the national high yet again AND also beat every other PWS around it. I have now discovered Talkshop friend Dr Eric Huxter has also been researching issues at Gosport. Perhaps the Met Office should start paying attention!

Gosport Fleetlands 16th October 2025