Wainfleet No 2 WMO 03392 and Gibraltar Point DCNN 2455 – “The sample with a built in bias” A modern case study in action.

The above Google map marks out the distance of less than 3.5 km/2.2 miles between the two alleged CIMO Class 1 Met Office weather stations of Wainfleet No 2 and Gibraltar Point. Both sites claim to be longstanding (“Long-Term”) though are in fact anything but. In the useful handbook by Darrell Huff entitled “How to Lie with Statistics” the author started by demonstrating how selective sampling can distort figures. I will review both sites first and then demonstrate the contrived use of selective sampling that now seems to motivate much of the Met Office current data representation.

WAINFLEET No 2 (automatic reporting site)

53.08840 0.27092 Installed 1/1/1988 Archived Temperature Readings Only From 8/2/1996

Tim Channon reviewed this site in 2012. He judged it only Class 3 based on unnatural and ever changing ground cover. On a personal level I find that an unduly harsh assessment though Tim was a far better judge of the regulations than I. Given that the Met Office frequently uses absurd tape measuring judgements themselves to justify extremely poor sites (i.e. Bingley No 2) I feel it is appropriate to back Tim’s opinion as below.

WMO03392, Wainfleet

It is interesting to note that in my original CIMO listing of 2024 supplied under FOI from the Met Office, Wainfleet was shown as Class 2 and only the latest edition upgrades the site to Class 1. Clearly there is either some debate on the standard of the site though a “Human error” default setting cannot be ruled out. Google Streetview imagery adds some extra perspective to help what is often, unfortunately, a potentially subjective interpretation/opinion.

However, one views this site, it is not especially bad and indeed much better than the vast majority of Met Office stations. One issue, though, that CIMO regulations were very much designed to address is, area representation. This raises the question, is Wainfleet typical/representative of a larger environment? It is after all only 3 metres (10 feet) amsl. Coastal sites are essential for meteorology and indeed in being a group of islands they do tend to predominate the UK station listings. The screen is 2 km/1.3 miles from The Wash as in this Ordnance Survey Sheet extract below. Probably quite a breezy spot and subject to frequent haar.

The lack of any contours or spot heights above 5 metres together with the distance from the sea suggest this is fair site for a national weather station and whilst not perfect it is a good one for representing the Lincolnshire lowlands.

GIBRALTAR POINT (manual reporting…..now and again)

53.09551 0.32133 Installed 1/1/1975 Temperature Readings ONLY From 1/2/1987 to 30/6/1989 site re-opened 1/12/2024

Gibraltar Point is shown on the latest updated CIMO listing from the Met Office as Class 1 for temperature and humidity. I sincerely hope that this is a default/human error as the site has only just reopened or it may not have been re-assessed yet. It would require a quite surreal interpretation of the CIMO regulations to categorize this site as anything other than junk Class 5. Unfortunately, who really knows what the Met Office may wish us to believe considering such CIMO assessment data is not publicly available online and required FOI to obtain….a state secret perhaps?

When previously operational for recording temperatures, Gibraltar Point produced very sporadic readings – in the 874 possible days of archived readings 102 were missing. Note, however that these predated Wainfleet’s archived temperature readings and would have been “put to use”.

I have been unable to get any close up imagery of the screen (any help locating an image would be greatly appreciated and put in the comments below if possible ) but I have manged to find an interesting ornithological Youtube clip showing the nature of the site. In Ordnance Survey close up the site can be seen to be almost on the “beach” area of salt marsh (oddly marked as a recycling centre).

This screen is most certainly not representative of a wider area being solely representative of its own unique location. So why reintroduce this site as a “Climate Reporting” Station?

In the past I have noted “trends” in site locations and new openings. Devon has a disproportionately high number of stations for its area to be included in the national historic temperature record and yet another new site at Hollacombe has been added since I wrote that original review. Reviewing Scottish issues I noted a similar trend of over representation in certain (generally warmer) areas with two very new additional Western Isles sites. In both discussions on Derbyshire and Fife the paucity of Screens in cooler locations contrasts sharply with the preponderance of sites in a very small sector of west London conclusively shown to be subject to extreme Urban Heat Island effects. Sites such as Iver are actually quite new.

In addition to the known closure of rural locations over the last half century as locally detailed for example in Kent, there has been the well known expansion of urban areas affecting other long term sites once on the peripheries of built up areas. All this leads to a general uplift in temperature readings. The further addition /reopening of warmer reading (i.e. coastal) sites such as Gibraltar Point can only enhance this warming trend by the selective us of the “sample with the built in bias”.

If this suggestion of deliberate sample/site selection seems like an almost conspiracy bridge too far it is worth considering the selected way in which the Met Office portrays its own data.

The time frame shown above is from 1961 to 1990……….as I deliberately highlighted in the headline image for Wainfleet……………Temperature Readings Only From 8/2/1996. It is one thing for the Met Office to claim that only data from well correlated sites are used going forward BUT what data was being used to compile averages for a 30 year period that was 6 years prior to any readings at all from Wainfleet? Were they, in part using poorly read data from a poorly sited station just a few kilometres away on the salt marsh that represents nowhere other than itself at Gibraltar point? When challenged to provide the details of the contributing sites for the Met Office stations at both Folkestone and Dover under FOI, I was advised

” I can advise you that the Met Office is unable to supply specific details of the observing sites requested, as this is not recorded information.”

If the Met Office in 2024 was unable to supply the data used to calculate averages for sites up to just 4 years previous i.e. 2020, is the general public expected to believe any claims the Met Office makes regarding the validity of data used between 1961 and 1990 prior even to the existence of the recording site that it is attributed to. If anyone wishes to ask the Met Office to justify the above data by supplying details of the sites used, they are welcome to try. However, I can guarantee not only that you will not get a definitive answer but also that they simply do not know themselves. This “peer reviewed” system is obviously nothing more than data manipulation for non-scientific purposes.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/03/07/wainfleet-no-2-wmo-03392-and-gibraltar-point-dcnn-2455-the-sample-with-a-built-in-bias-a-modern-case-study-in-action/