Charterhall WMO 03158 – Scotland’s all time high or an intriguing cover up?

55.70859 -2.38467 (maybe!) Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1987 Temperature records from 1/2/1992.

In 2012 Tim Channon reviewed Greycrook weather station which set the 2003 (then) all time Scottish highest temperature at 32.9 °C. He pointedly made the following remark –

“I’ve posted this article so it is on file and as an incidental where looking at record breaking sites tends to show poor sites. Curiously records or near records tend to be set followed by site cessation or sudden site change / equipment change.”

I have often wondered why Tim felt the need to comment “so it is on file” and also to comment on site alterations shortly after records were set. Investigations I have made have further uncovered “items” that I feel need to be “on record” such as fake data appearing such as at Waddington, Faversham and several others. The case of current Scottish all time record holder at Charterhall is incredibly suspicious and I would like to ensure certain items are on file just in case they should “change”.

Firstly I shall start with this 19/2/2022 Charterhall all time Scottish record.

“Scotland’s new record temperature during the recent “extreme” heatwave has been confirmed as 34.8C.

The mercury soared above the previous peak of 32.9C at Charterhall in the Scottish borders, according to official data.

A previous high of 35.1C, recorded at Floors Castle, was not officially recognised because the site is not compliant with Met Office standards.”

Whoa wait a minute……Floors Castle is an official manually reporting site that predates Charterhall by 46 years. It is fully CIMO assessed as Class 4 exactly the same as Charterhall. Whether STV got this information or not from the Met Office is unknown, however, for them to suggest Floors Castle site is not Met Office compliant is blatantly untrue. The observation recording at Floors Castle is impeccable and whilst it is not a good site being in a walled garden, as I shall demonstrate, Charterhall genuinely was significantly inferior and an unacceptable site to set national records.

This downplaying of Floors Castle really does need some explanation especially as the same news channel had proclaimed the record there the day before.

A new record high of 35.1C saw Scotland experience its hottest ever day, according to official figures.

Temperatures soared across the country on Tuesday which saw the previous record high exceeded by 2.2C at Floors Castle, in the Borders.

A temperature of 34.8C was initially reported in Charterhall in the Borders, breaking a 19-year record, but official figures confirmed on Wednesday showed it was even hotter.

STV’s meteorologist Sean Batty said it was “absolutely incredible”.

“I said in Tuesday’s news when I was at Floors Castle that the Scottish record had been set at Charter Hall 34.8 degrees Celsius,” he said.

There is nothing officially problematical with the Floors Castle site according to the Met Office which to this day still uses this climate reporting station’s data in compiling the historic temperature record. As is seen in the Facebook video clip in my report, the site has a PRT thermometer calibrated 3/7/ 2019.

HOLD THIS THOUGHT – if the reading was known to be suspect and not officially ratified why was it not expunged from the records? The Met Office has knowingly archived what it claims was unacceptable data

THIS IS A COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE PRACTISE- Exactly the Same as at Waddington.

I suggest that the probable reason for not verifying the Floors Castle reading at the time was simply because it is a highly publicly visible unit being in the walled kitchen garden of a tourist attraction. Anyone can inspect the site and would almost certainly have noted that a kitchen garden is an artificial site deliberately intended to unnaturally elevate temperatures. Floors Castle almost certainly recorded 35.1°C but of course it was no more representative of the real world temperature than any other artificial environment. The Met Office could not risk being exposed to the inevitable criticism of their standards so, essentially, they told an untruth.

Reviewing the Charterhall site itself is even more revealing. This site is a former RAF airfield long disused and quite remote from any major urban areas. It is also rather low quality and in some historic views there are large mounds of compost/manure piled alongside the enclosure giving of plenty of decomposition heat on this now farm site. There are the remains of old second world war buildings around it and there are various other instruments/power supplies in the enclosure. However, now look very closely at these images from Geograph.

It looks like a typical well equipped major WMO site, a bit rough around the edges and that mound behind in the lower image is really not beneficial to accurate readings. But that is not the issue. On multiple reviews I have noted that screens and enclosures are often relocated quite large distances without any notification from the Met Office. Examples of this covert relocation include Cambridge NIAB and Sutton Bonnington amongst lots of others.

So imagine my extreme surprise when I discovered that immediately following Charterhall setting that Scottish all time record that, just as Tim Channon conjectured, the site was relocated and I believe (awaiting confirmation) re-equipped. This is identical to the relocation/renewal that occurred at Faversham after it recorded the 2003 hotly disputed “record”.

So to where was this relocation and how did I know? Well it seems someone at the Met Office felt, in this case, it was important to record the site change as below in the archives.

For those not familiar with map coordinates “NT 75917 46194” and “NT 75935 46196” are National Grid Reference numbers that you can input into this Grid Reference Finder. Those who are familiar with these coordinate systems will immediately realise that this relocation is measured in single digit numbers of feet! Why on earth would the Met Office relocate a screen just a few feet and why even bother to record that? Look at the first of the two location images and it shows the screen is NOT OVER GRASS and that is a complete no-no for weather stations.

It appears the screen was not over grass nor was it sufficiently distant from other compromising factors within the existing enclosure and was thus relocated to correct problems which had, in reality, rendered the 19th July 2022 reading invalid. Having ruled out the impeccably well kept and recorded Floors Castle site PLUS having already shut down the nearby (but clearly “dubious” quality) Greycrook site the Met Office were stuck with defending the credibility of Charterhall despite all its very obvious shortcomings. Luckily for them this relatively remote location was unlikely to come under detailed scrutiny and the “record” still stands despite being an almost certainly significant over-record. However the “cover up” never ends. The Met Office offers a “Weather Observations Website” which includes some, but by no means all, of their official sites. Charterhall appears as below.

The page offers the ability to go back in time by adjusting the date and time period header. Try it yourself and it does NOT show any data whatsoever for Charterhall for that record breaking date – rather odd really. Why are the Met office always so unwilling to show their data on these “crucially” important dates or do they prefer not too much scrutiny?

In summary,

1. The 2003 Scottish “record” holder, “Greycrook” was closed down almost immediately after achieving its “record” with several Met Office comments of “DATA RUBBISH”. The Screen, however, is still in situ.

2. Scotland has “form” with dubious record claims notably the 2018 debacle with Motherwell:Strathclyde Park and the ice cream van.

3. A temperature on 19/7/2022 was recorded at an official long term Met office station (Floors Castle) with recently calibrated modern instrumentation that was suddenly considered “unreliable” – but this “unreliable” figure was then archived for future referral to and inclusion in the climate record.

4. A clearly unacceptable Stevenson Screen (Charterhall) was awarded the “record” then quietly relocated and improved to avoid any unwanted scrutiny. Its immediate online viewable data history was removed.

I will be putting this report to the Met Office for their comments. However, as they seem to have adopted a policy of non engagement with those who query their position, I doubt they will respond.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2025/04/11/charterhall-wmo-03158-scotlands-all-time-high-or-an-intriguing-cover-up/