"Ian" wrote in message
oups.com...
On 24 Sep, 09:23, kiticat wrote:
Been meaning to post this for a while but the weather obs seem really up
the creek on the Met office site:

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...ough_latest_we...
suggests its been clear and sunny this morning when actually its been
rather wet and very cloudy. I've noticed this several times now.

Sarah

http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....76379f215ecd0b

Hi Sarah, link above to a very similar recent topic.

Bedford (Thurleigh) is just 7 miles SSE of me, and during active cold
front passage this morning reported no rain, and medium level cloud
throughout.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/...er_graphs.html

Scope for improvement on the quality control front ;-)

Ian,

Raunds, East Northants.


As I have reported before, I raised the matter of false weather reports from
"South Farnborough" some while ago, and received the following reply from
the Met O on 29th July:

"Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your feedback regarding observations from South Farnborough
displayed on the “latest/recent past” pages of the Met Office web site.

As is noted on these pages, observations are subject to final quality
control checks after publication on this web site. However, you would
reasonably expect observations of present weather to be consistent with that
experienced at the location in question.

Whilst we are confident that the vast majority of observation reports on our
web site are reliable, in a few cases there appears to be an issue with the
way the data is transferred into the web pages for the particular stations.
These are under investigation by colleagues.

We are grateful for your feedback and would like to thank you for taking the
time to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Martin Kidds
Customer Feedback Manager
Met Office"

So the matter is "under investigation".

I am sure that Martin is correct in deducing that we are dealing with an
automatic station in which case the Met Office should not, in my opinion,
report the weather type - especially where, as in the present case, it is so
often absurd. Those with the necessary skills can perhaps deduce this from
the other available data, but not Joe Public for whom the information is
presumably provided.

Roger