Port Glenone WMO03915 – Another under-rated site and the remarkably strange climate averages of Northern Ireland.

54.865286 -6.457855 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Archived temperature records from 1/1/1993

Portglenone is not as its name may suggest on the coast, rather it is a picturesque small village inland in Northern Ireland 8.5 miles (14 km) west of Ballymena on the banks of the river Bann. The weather station itself lies almost a mile southeast of the village in a rural open country position that is far from any roads. There are no streetview nor online images available for the site itself making assessing the site quality remotely rather difficult. In this review I will cover some of the ways I use to make these assessments when immediate visuals are not available. In addition there are some rather odd climate averages in Northern Ireland that are worth covering as Portglenone is also a key synoptic and climate World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) reporting site.

Tim Channon briefly reviewed the site in 2012 coming to the conclusion it was possibly CIMO Class 1 – with the caveat of being unsure regarding the nearby unconfirmed fence/wall running east/west approximately 12 metres to the north of the screen itself. He felt if this was a brick or stone wall it may well mark the rating down but Class 2 would not be inappropriate.

To develop the research, the delineation of the 100 metre radius clearly shows no buildings, structures or inappropriate ground cover within. There are a few shrubs around but shadow indication is that these are low bushes and seem to be under control. Trying to ascertain the topography of the area I used “Elevation Finder” to map out a few spot heights around the perimeter relative to the screen as below.

The site is by no means perfectly flat but not a steep slope either. Gently shelving would be a more appropriate description. How this slope affects shading is the main issue as the nearest trees to the north north east start at 70.7 metres (232.1 feet) and grow from almost 3 metres higher than the screen. This constitutes a gentle uphill slope in that direction but would only affect very early morning exposure. On this basis the site is not perfection and I would expect the Met Office to mark it down slightly on shading grounds.

In reality, however this is otherwise open countryside and a good exposure. The problem is identifying the wall/fence. Looking at the historic images over time this feature does not change so it is highly unlikely to be hedging, if it is then it really is very well maintained. Focusing in very close reveals it is almost certainly some form of wall but a notably low one.

The shadow cast by the screen itself extends a slightly further distance than that cast by the wall. I asked Grok AI to do a detailed image examination and it assessed the likely wall height in the region of 1.4 metres – that equated to my approximate ruler guess! The wall scales to just 12 metres from the screen so should allow this site to meet Class 3 if considered an issue, however, I again doubt it is a major concern an unlikely to be causing a radiation issue from that distance.

An interesting point to note is the Met Office’s reasoning behind picking this location back in the 1980s. This is a fully equipped synoptic site so they will have wanted the most open exposure available for forecasting purposes. This was also automatic reporting from its inception which back then would have required a mains electricity connection for equipment power and a landline for data transmission. Normally mains electricity is not available in the middle of agricultural farmland unless of course there is an electricity distribution network system passing nearby. This power requirement was in fact a major factor in weather station location in these early automation days and unavailability was a contributing factor in the closure of a large number of rural sites from the mid 1980s onwards.

This is an indicator of the electricity supply from Open Infrastructure. showing the symbol for pole mounted transformer on the cable route just to the west of my manually added blue enclosure. The overhead cable route is just visible in the headline image and from the street view image of crossing the road also to the west indicates it was also carrying telecommunications services.

I personally agree with Tim’s caveat and would say Class 1 perfection is ruled out but Class 2 is perfectly reasonable. What I simply cannot get even close to understanding is how the Met Office can mark Portglenone’s exposure down to Class 4 whilst simultaneously claiming that just 18 miles away this site below is a better Class 3.

I personally find it almost surreal that the Met Office can feel that such busy perimeter airport sites like Aldergrove (better known as Belfast International Airport) along with Heathrow, Gatwick, Dyce (Aberdeen), Hawarden, are better than open exposure field sites such as Portglenone. AI estimated in the region of 8000 parked cars alone in the image below. Do Met Office “Climate Scientists” never consider the wider picture and just what effect a gentle south easterly breeze might have here on temperatture readings?

Looking through my own personal notes on Northern Ireland sites which largely range from the quite bizarrely corrupted at Derrylin the almost intentionally conceived as atrocious at Giant’s Causeway and the straight forward illogical data presentation of UHI versus rural standards at Killowen I uncovered a map I had made at the time. I have opted to post it here to demonstrate my typical research style when composing reports.

As I have stated before I was not intending to use Northern Ireland sites in constructing a new historic temperature record and will solely concentrate on mainland Great Britain. However, looking at the Met Office location specific climate averages that I manually mapped out for my own visual perception, really cast serious suspicion on their authenticity. Here it is below:.

The red numbers indicate the 60 year increments in mean minimums that the Met office claims from their homogenised data. The blue numbers are the mean maximums.

How on earth does the the Met Office come to terms with just 0.29°C in mean minimum increment in Belfast (conforming to 0.33°C at Helens Bay and 0.34 at Katesbridge) against a staggering 1.79°C at Killowen which is over 6 times the numeric value of Belfast?.

How do they assimilate such variations where some sites have significantly higher maximum incremments than minimum when in others the reverse is the case?

Surely Bangher:Caugh Hill with a mean maximum increment of 0.45°C is at odds with the barely warming minimum at Helens Bay which yet shows numerically double that warming maximum of 1°C.

I am confident any suggestion of anthropogenic global warming caused by increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide is vastly less plausible than dubious interpretation of low grade data from poor siting standards and subsequent adjustments and homogenisation. After all if the Met office considers Aldergrove better located and exposed than Portglenone then anything is possible!

Source: https://talkshop.blog/2026/08/27/port-glenone-wmo03915-another-under-rated-site-and-the-remarkably-strange-climate-averages-of-northern-ireland/