Douglas DCNN6951 – a very odd weather station with even odder professional views about it.

Red kite marks the Stevenson Screen within the central railinged compound of the Douglas Borough Cemetery. Image courtesy Dr Alan Hisscott.

Meteorologist and meteorological historian Dr Alan Hisscott claims there have been over 100 different weather recording points on the Isle of Man over the years. Bishop Thomas Wilson installed a barometer and thermometers at his residence in Bishopscourt in the 1720s and there are possibilities of even earlier sites. Currently, however, the Met Office only acknowledges 2 official CIMO assessed weather stations on the island both the the south east coast at Ronaldsway airport (quite wrongly claimed to be CIMO Class 1 – probably a default/human error) and here in the capital of Douglas.

I opted to headline this report with a ground level image of the station on the basis that “a picture paints a thousand words” – that I have to say any more is just to indicate the absurdity of Met Office site assessment. Below is the aerial image from Google maps.

54.168191, -4.4814440 Met Office CIMO Assessed Class 4 Installed 1/1/1878 but no temperature records in digital archives.

Firstly for the Met Office to claim this site is Class 4 is simply wrong – this site is unquestionably yet another Class 5. The screen is about 600mm / 2 feet from 2 metre / 6 feet 6 inch high iron railings within its circular secure compound with multiple other structures and statuary in close proximity. It sits within the main borough cemetary surrounded by the town and clearly bears no similarity whatsoever with the natural environment. Wind shading at 1.25 metres above ground will be almost total.

Curiously cemeteries are often not especially bad places to house weather stations if they are more open, as they are unlikely to change significantly or be converted to other uses.{I will soon be reviewing the now closed Herne Bay cemetery weather station to demonstrate how good some of these site types can actually be}. This site is, however, very densely covered with memorial masonry and tarmaced footpaths with its own significant secutrity enclosure and equipment store being further problems.

Oddly neither of the Isle of Man sites have digitally archived data and even manual records are scant. It is not possible to view the primary readings online from the official Met Office source. In the case of Ronaldsway, the real time readings are available to view on Weatherobs.com and historic readings are held on the the Tutiempo site. This absence of data becomes even stranger when looking at the “Remarks” section underneath the empty section where the data normally would be. There are literally hundreds of entriess for this site from which this is just a small extract indicating onservations were incredibly hit and miss on a frequent basis. It seems very odd to record so many comments relating to not taking readings when none of those actually taken have even been archived. Which dates are missing are known but not what they were on successful dates!

2007-10-20	2007-10-20	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Reader on duty
2007-10-15	2007-10-15	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: There was no weather reader at work
2007-10-10	2007-10-10	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Keys to weather station
2007-10-07	2007-10-07	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: Reader Unavailable
2007-09-27	2007-09-27	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Reader Available
2007-09-21	2007-09-21	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Reader available
2007-09-19	2007-09-19	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Reader available
2007-08-29	2007-08-29	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Reader Available
2007-09-09	2007-09-09	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: Weather Reader had no keys
2007-08-08	2007-08-09	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: Workmen working in the weather station
2007-08-02	2007-08-03	MISSING DATA	Source: OWL DCNN: 6951 NSR: No Keys for Access to site

Perhaps the strangest thing I came across in researching this station was the lack of any comments regarding its very poor exposure. The highly acclaimed meteorologist, Dr. Alan Hiscott that I referenced earlier, appears perfectly comfortable with the standards here. This is, however, a classic example of urban encroachment. Just prior to the instalation of this site, the capital of the Isle Of Man moved from Castletown to Douglas in 1869. Up to then Douglas had a modest population of under 14,000 and the cemetery was on the outskirts of the developed area. The Administratations relocation led to significant an ongoing expansion of Douglas to become by far the most urbanised area on the island. This expansion surrounded the cemetery as the population more than doubled since.

Ultimately this Douglas site is of very poor exposure, very poorly observed (though data is unseen) and highly subject to urban encroachment effects over time. This moved me on to examining the “climate averages” derived by the Met Office from all this unseen data. Douglas refers enquiries over to the Ronaldsway site.

Station: Ronaldsway

Climate period: 1991-2020

Month	Maximum temperature (°C)	Minimum temperature (°C)	Days of air frost (days)	Sunshine (hours)	Rainfall (mm)	Days of rainfall ≥1 mm (days)	Monthly mean wind speed at 10 m (knots)

Annual

12.99

7.90

10.17

1651.18

882.89

141.79

12.22

Climate period: 1961-1990

Annual

12.17

6.82

22.33

1537.70

862.21

138.13

–

Completely bucking the trend of stations around the rest of the UK the increment in mean maximums is shown as 0.82°C which is a lot lower than the mean minimum increment claimed of 1.18°C

This table shows how this compares with Met Office claims for rest of the UK in mean maximum and mean increments in degrees celsius over the 60 year period from 1961 to 2020.

Country………………………………………..Mean Maximum increment……………………..Mean Minimum Increment

England………………………………………………1.04……………………………………………………0.80

Scotland………………………………………………0.77……………………………………………………0.65

Wales………………………………………………….0.91……………………………………………………0.71

Northern Ireland……………………………………0.75…………………………………………………….0.65

Isle Of Man…………………………………………0.82…………………………………………………….1.18

Is this highly significant difference in mean minimum increments a discriminatory effect of CO2 molecules looking to warm up this partucular island moreso than elsewhere?……….. Or is it a facet of taking readings in heavily UHI influenced sites (holding up nighttime lows) such as Class 5 Douglas or alngside the 740,000 square feet of concrete parking apron, 10,900 feet of runways, 16,000 feet of taxiways, car parking and roadways at Ronaldsway Airport?

Or is all this just me spreading misinfrmation as the Met office and their minister Lord Patrick Vallence claim?

Source: https://talkshop.blog/2026/10/14/douglas-dcnn6951-a-very-odd-weather-station-with-even-odder-professional-views-about-it/