Teignmouth DCNN 8871 – The only thing worse than this junk location is the Met Office data analysis from it.

50.54503 -3.49492 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5 Installed 1/1/1910

In reviewing Huntsham, I referred to Met Office “Factsheets” regarding the South West of England climate and how Teignmouth was significantly warmer. On further inspection I found a separate “Factsheet” relating to Micro-Climates that specifically featured Teignmouth. This informative guide demonstrated just how appallingly unfit for its purpose the Met Office actually is.

Firstly to review this location, at the risk of becoming boring, this site is terrible. Surrounded by tarmac footpaths leading to the pier (incredibly busy with holidaymakers in high summer) there is no possible way of describing this as a natural environment. Ground cover in every direction (including a bowling green) parked cars, rubbish bins, park benches etc. bears no similarity to normal coastal areas. This is Class 5 at its worst, very definitely a unique micro-climate and should (but isn’t) be classed as “Unsatisfactory” even by the Met Office’s own loose descriptor. There really is no more to say about this site. I doubt it was acceptable, even on its original installation 115 years ago. It is, and always has been, a manually reporting site…..occasionally.

So referring to that “Factsheet” a comparison is made to demonstrate Micro- climates as below

This is all straightforward explanatory stuff though perhaps the variable nature of the individual site’s exact locations is conveniently overlooked. Below is that explanatory table:

Reading all of the article nothing at all seems contentious, the figures appear “reasonable” and it is the Met Office as the source after all so where could there possibly be any problem? Well probably because the figures for Teignmouth are cross between complete invention and only partial years averaging. They are, in fact, junk that is even worse than the atrocious site of the station.

I recently re-posted some excellent analysis of data by Stephen Connolly whom I strongly recommend following if you are an X (formerly Twitter) user. His report certainly made me review “data” and its statistical presentation in a different light. It also highlighted the spectacular diligence of meteorologists of Met Éireann at Valentia station who managed to make 20 manual observations per day for a staggering 68 years with only 2 missing readings. If only their UK counterparts could have got remotely close to that standard, their data would have some relevance. Unfortunately reading some manual stations (even only on a daily basis) in the UK seems to be an optional exercise.

Evaluating each of the above comparison stations, Plymouth:Mountbatten is a World meteorological Organisation (WMO) site and was supplying automated readings going back to the very earliest days of the 1960s. From the point of view of readings frequency, its data is very reliable. Princetown is better known as Dartmoor High Security Prison. The site stopped archiving readings in 2000, however, prior to that its records were immaculately well kept in probably being a non-optional function of prison life for certain inmates as part of their rehabilitation process. Its data is equally reliable. In contrast, whilst the table above shows the period 1971 to 2000 of annual average readings …….Teignmouth produced no figures whatsoever for 1980 and none for the entire period of 1983 to 1993 inclusive. This can be checked out here.

If the above is not adequate condemnation of the averaging, by digging deeper and examining each year’s actual readings it becomes evident that actually visiting the site and recording them was very much a part time occupation in more ways than one. Below is a typical example of one of the better year’s readings in 2000. Presumably including December figures might have messed up the averaging.

Some of the years when reading were actually taken, less than 50% of the readings occurred. Despite this ridiculous level of infrequency, the Met Office still somehow managed to derive an annual “average” – presumably Ju-Ju sticks, OuiJa boards or some other form of magic were employed. One would hope this sort of lax situation would no longer apply, however, from data I received under Freedom of Information request, the recent year levels of observations have not improved at all.

2022 saw an improvement with a mere 41 missing days.

However, in 2023 recidivism took over.

All this demonstrates, yet again, the imperative the Met Office feels it has to produce an annual “average” temperature presumably to fill the box despite the basic fact that the alleged “average” is a completely meaningless figure – unmitigated nonsense. An annual average requires a consistent 365/6 days readings and nothing less is acceptable.

As I highlighted way back in my (still unanswered ) letter to Peter Kyle MP Secretary of State for DSIT , inaccurate numbers (“data” would be an inappropriate description) are subsequently being analysed by both the Met Office and other institutions to reach unsubstantiated and often quite ridiculous claims on which important decisions are being made. Whilst the “Factsheet” may seem innocuous in itself, it gives an undeserved level of credence to the Met Office often spurious data which it does not deserve.

I quote: ““Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet.” – Prof. Celeste Saulo, WMO Secretary-General

If the Met Office simply makes up annual averages in the way they clearly do from a junk site like Teignmouth, what credence can be given to them?

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/03/12/teignmouth-dcnn-8871-the-only-thing-worse-than-this-junk-location-is-the-met-office-data-analysis-from-it/