What's happened to Exeter Airport?

[xmetman]

I don't know if anyone else in the SW has noticed the absence of Exeter Airport from the SYNOPs WMO #03839, I do hope that it's just temporary, but the Met Office seem set on deconstructing what's left of the observational network in the UK obviously they can replace it with WOW observations which of course are just as good and free.

In retaliation, and in act of open defiance, I've decide to give my own site at Bradninch its own WMO number #03838 so that I can run it through my various application. I was expecting a rather cloudy day after yesterday's evening pessimistic forecast, but there have been good sunny spell this morning, which has lifted the temperature here in mid-Devon to almost 23°C, not that you would have noticed from looking at the BBC 1230 forecast.

It could be down to the shelter from Dartmoor perhaps, but the gradient looks a bit too well veered at around 290°, then again it may be down to the siting of my AWS stuck on the top of our pergola!

Highest Air Temperature

1100 UTC on Friday, 8 July 2016

In WMO Block 03

 [01] 03838  Bradninch                    22.7  [72.9]

 [02] 03522  Hereford                     21.0  [69.8]

      03529  Pershore                     21.0  [69.8]

 [03] 03488  Weybourne                    20.7  [69.3]

      03746  Boscombe Down                20.7  [69.3]

      03649  RAF Brize Norton             20.7  [69.3]

 [04] 03853  Yeovilton                    20.5  [68.9]

      03797  RAF Manston                  20.5  [68.9]

      03768  Farnborough                  20.5  [68.9]

 [05] 03772  London Heathrow              20.4  [68.7]

      03770  London St James Park         20.4  [68.7]

      03749  Middle Wallop                20.4  [68.7]

 [06] 03379  RAF Cranwell                 20.3  [68.5]

 [07] 03391  RAF Coningsby                20.1  [68.2]

      03520  Shobdon                      20.1  [68.2]

      03658  RAF Benson                   20.1  [68.2]

 [08] 03292  Bridlington                  20.0  [68.0]

      03672  RAF Northolt                 20.0  [68.0]

 [09] 03647  Little Rissington            19.9  [67.8]

      03743  Larkhill                     19.9  [67.8]

 [10] 03862  Bournemouth                  19.8  [67.6]

      03469  RAF Holbeach                 19.8  [67.6]

 [11] 03784  Gravesend-Broadness          19.7  [67.5]

 [12] 03840  Dunkeswell                   19.6  [67.3]

      03680  Rothamsted                   19.6  [67.3]

      03535  Coleshill                    19.6  [67.3]

 [13] 03544  Church Lawford               19.5  [67.1]

      03628  Filton                       19.5  [67.1]

 [14] 03693  Shoeburyness                 19.4  [66.9]

      03080  Aboyne                       19.4  [66.9]

 [15] 03462  RAF Wittering                19.2  [66.6]

      03560  Thurleigh                    19.2  [66.6]

 [16] 03872  Thorney Island               19.1  [66.4]

      03313  Rhyl                         19.1  [66.4]

      03761  RAF Odiham                   19.1  [66.4]

 [17] 03803  Scilly                       19.0  [66.2]

      03482  RAF Marham                   19.0  [66.2]

      03171  RAF Leuchars                 19.0  [66.2]

 [18] 03961  Oak Park, Carlow             18.9  [66.0]

      03660  High Wycombe                 18.9  [66.0]

 [19] 03769  Charlwood                    18.8  [65.8]

 [20] 03392  Wainfleet                    18.7  [65.7]

      03894  Guernsey                     18.7  [65.7]

[Colin Youngs]

<I don't know if anyone else in the SW has noticed the absence of Exeter Airport from the SYNOPs>

 

I noticed it 10 minutes ago when I was looking through the list of min. temps for last night on OGIMET !

 

Colin Youngs

Brussels

[xmetman]

Colin

Yes, I can see that it's overnight min of 16 is plotted on the map, which is strange because it's not in the 0600 list.

I've fired off an enquiry to the MO about it.

Bruce.

[John Hall]

I don't have any hard facts, but I'd expect it to be a CAA requirement that a civil airport as big as Exeter (which from Wikipedia I learn handles around 750,000 passengers a year) should have an accredited MO observing site. Maybe there's currently some fault with the equipment.

[xmetman]

I finally winkled out of the Met Office help desk this morning that Exeter Airport, which has been 03839 since at least 1973 and probably for many years longer than that, has now for some strange reason now become 03844. If the Met Office can go to all that trouble to do for just one station that's not even changed location, then why can't they assign WMO numbers to the dozen of other climatological sites the data from which they so jealously guard on our behalf, and make them publically available.

I am in a kind of observers nirvana at the moment I have two Met Office SAMOS sites well within a 10 mile radius both of which have laser cloud base recorders. Not only that, the new Exeter airport site is now reporting winds, weather, hourly sunshine and radiation and daily sunshine totals. I almost think that there is someone down there at MO HQ that is reading the pleas that I make in my blog and forums like this!

I can forgive you for renumbering the WMO (and thankfully you didn't use the 03838 that I use for Bradninch) all you have to do now is free the rest of them!

[Smoky Bacon]

On Friday, July 8, 2016 at 5:02:16 PM UTC+1, John Hall wrote:

I don't have any hard facts, but I'd expect it to be a CAA requirement that a civil airport as big as Exeter (which from Wikipedia I learn handles around 750,000 passengers a year) should have an accredited MO observing site. Maybe there's currently some fault with the equipment.

If that is the case, does Bristol airport (around 6.5 million passengers per year) have a WMO number for its observations?

Maybe it could take over from Filton?  Wasn't that 03628 in the dim and distant past?

[xmetman]

Although Bristol Airport does have a WMO number (I would guess it's 03724 Lulsgate Bottom) it only issues METARs and does not have an AWS for SYNOPs.

Filton does have an AWS and has issued automatic SYNOP for many years.