Shoreham WMO 03876 – Ask a question, you will NOT get an answer.

50.83609 -0.29348 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 5S – {yes Class 5S.} Installed 1983 Temperature records from 1998.

The above aerial image includes a 100 metre radius circle centred on the screen. There are no apparent items to cause any shading. The surrounding area, though an airfield, is all grass. Think of Heathrow at Class 3 or Dyce at Class 4 and is it obvious that Shoreham should be Class 5S? Surely that must be a mistake, a human error . So I started an investigation……..a long time ago.

Tim Channon reviewed Shoreham in 2012 initially concluding Class 1 (exactly as I would) at first glance. But looking deeper perhaps there were some oddities that required closer inspection.

WMO03876, Shoreham Airport

With assistance from photography by Adrian Taylor, Tim was able to clarify that the site was severely downgraded by equipment within the unusual enclosure.

Given the extreme levels of corruption at some sites, this one clearly is not good but there are far worse out there – or are there? Examining any changes over time from aerial images shows some quite strange things going on since the above image.

Quite what the carousel bottom left in the enclosure is I have no idea. The peculiar enclosure shape and indeterminate ground cover within seems to no longer be grass other than the immediate footprint of the screen itself. This is obviously not solely a Met office enclosure and rather similar, in may ways, to the Gravesend site.

I decided to contact the Met Office directly for definitive guidance – two months ago. I got the usual immediate acknowledgement followed by silence.

Servicedesk  Unsubscribe	Sat 8 Feb, 18:21
to me

Thank you Ray for contacting the Met Office concerning Public – Shoreham Weather Station WMO 03876 – listed as Class 5S should be class 1 which has been logged under our reference of: CS0090221.

A member of our Customer Service Team has already received your request and will be in touch shortly, with a response. “

Three weeks later I contacted again politely enquiring if they had an answer. More silence ensued. another 3 weeks later I contacted again – still no answer. Now after two months I shall put in a Freedom of Information request. This is totally inappropriate to FOI procedures to get an answer to simple basic questions but if the absence of any response, it is the only option available.

The gist of my enquiry is simply that, if the present screen is so compromised in its present enclosure, then why not simply install an additional new one as the location for the site sensitive equipment leaving everything else unaffected. A simple solar panel and mobile connection (as demonstrated by the Met Office observer at Cardiff Bute Park) would surely suffice as there are no shortage of unobstructed places for a new screen. For a relatively modest outlay, the Class 5S (effectively useless readings for historic temperature recording purposes) could become Class 1 excellence for the future. Why is all this basic stuff regarded almost as a “State secret”?

it is hard to apportion blame be it incompetence or intention, but quite why the Met Office is persisting in using readings from such a known poor site when it could so easily be improved is a question that they seem unwilling to even discuss.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/09/shoreham-wmo-03876-ask-a-question-you-will-not-get-an-answer/