Simple FOI Requests for Data Said to Back Non-existent Temperature Stations Refused on “Vexatious” Grounds by UK Met Office
by Chris Morrison 14 July 2025 9:00 AM
The UK Met Office recently declared an average daily maximum temperature of 22.3°C for June 2025 at Lowestoft: Monkton Avenue. But there is no weather station at Lowestoft and hasn’t been since 2010. Over the last 15 years, the temperature measurements published in the Met Office’s Historic Station Database have been invented, or rather estimated according to the State meteorologist with figures from “well-correlated related neighbouring stations”. This explanation might be more plausible if the Met Office could actually name the stations, presumably a simple task with the vital scientific input data readily to hand. Alas, it seems not. A number of Freedom of Information (FOI) requests for the identity of these well-correlated stations near Lowestoft and other non-existent stations have been denied by the Met Office quoting “vexatious” grounds. It has concluded that the “public interest factors in favour of not responding to the requests outweighed the public interest factors in favour of responding to the requests”.
The FOI requests have been made by citizen super sleuth Ray Sanders who is engaged on a detailed scientific study of the Met Office’s nationwide temperature measuring network and climate average databases. His requests for help in this work are simple and, in addition to seeking how data is inputted into non-existent weather stations – 103 at the last count – he asked why a national record of 40.3°C on July 19th, 2022 at RAF Waddington is to be found in the CEDA archives, but was not claimed at the time. Great play was made of the record 40.3°C declared at nearby RAF Coningsby on the same day, although later disclosures have shown it was a 60-second spike as three Typhoon jets were attempting to land. Sanders is not asking for anything complicated that might involve considerable work on the part of the Met Office. He is merely seeking information that should be easily obtained within the records of the Met Office.
The ‘vexatious/public interest’ suggestion is the latest dog ate my homework excuse offered by the Met Office to avoid identifying the so-called well-correlated neighbouring stations. Earlier this year, it told Sanders that the information was not actually held by the Met Office. It was claimed that “the specific stations used in regressive analysis each month are not an output from the process”. Needless to say, that nonsense failed to satisfy Sanders and you can read here details of his recent FOI requests and the Met Office’s lengthy reply.
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/07/14/simple-foi-requests-for-data-said-to-back-non-existent-temperature-stations-refused-on-vexatious-grounds-by-uk-met-office/
