Woodford Met Office Station?

[March Blizzard]

Does anyone know why the Woodford station hasn't been operating for the last three days? Is it undergoing maintenance perhaps?

I ask because i was wondering if the Met Office were going to abandon it after the B.A.E site was sold to new owners, maybe they already have? I hope not, it's the closest one to my house!

[TonyH]

Probably maintenance, Same happened with the Trawscoed station recently, it was out for a week or so.

If you contact them they are very helpful and will tell you why.

[March Blizzard]

You're probably right. I was probably being a little paranoid...

[Interitus]

Woodford still offline?

That's 9 days now - good job that the temperatures haven't been low as it's one of the centres used to calculate the Cold Weather Payments.

[johnholmes]

why not e mail and politely ask what the problem is-nobody on here is able to tell you?

[johnholmes]

just to show how easy it is

already a reply to my question to them

Dear John,

Thank you for your email regarding there currently being no observations for our Woodford Site.

This is due a communication issue at this site which is currently being investigated as a matter of urgency by our Technical Support Team. We hope to have this issue resolved shortly.

We apologise for any inconvenience at this time and thank you for your patience.

I hope that this information is of use but it you require any further assistance please contact the Weather Desk on 0870 9000 100 where one of our advisors will be happy to help. The number is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Yours sincerely

Emma

Weather Desk Advisor

Met Office, FitzRoy Road, Exeter, Devon, EX1 3PB, United Kingdom.

Tel: 0870 900 0100 or +44 (0)1392 88 5680 Fax: 0870 900 5050 Twitter: @metoffice

Email: enquiries@metoffice.gov.uk http://www.metoffice.gov.uk

Edited March 7, 2012 by johnholmes

[Interitus]

Woodford has been down again for some time - actually turns out that it has closed!

We have been notified by the Met Office that the weather station at Manchester Woodford will close on Monday

28 May. This short notice was due to the site owner declining to renew the lease for the site with little warning to

the Met Office. This station is currently used as main weather station site for the North Western Grid Supply Point

(GSP) Group (_G), and provides temperature data to ELEXON for settlement purposes and forecast data to

Suppliers. The back-up weather station for this GSP Group is Hawarden.

The Met. Office will open a new observation station in Rostherne (approximately 10 miles from Woodford) on

Thursday 24 May 2012.

http://www.elexon.co...05/EL019591.pdf

Nice of the Met Office to let us know.

Not been able to find any data for Rostherne as yet.

The station is closer to me so it will be interesting personally, but it is different to Woodford - in particular it probably won't get quite the same low winter minimum temperatures.

[AderynCoch]

So that's Woodford closed for good?

It's strange how suddenly this has transpired. Even moving to a nearby site can play havoc with the continuous records of the area, due to possible microclimates. Does anyone know if Rostherne is in a frost hollow?

[Scorcher]

Rostherne is actually very close to Manchester Airport, about the same distance away that Woodford is but in the other direction. It's hard to say how it will differ from Woodford but it does seem Woodford is a frost hollow, given that it has often recorded much lower temperatures at night time in winter than Manchester Airport.

[March Blizzard]

Only just noticed the replies to this thread. Absolutely gutted Woodford is gone despite the fact i somewhat expected it after the site was sold. Looking on Google earth it appears the area around Rostherne appears to average about 50m ASL. Woodford was at 88m ASL, I think. However, Rostherne is much further away from any high ground than Woodford is, Lyme Park (250 to nearly 400m ASL) is only 4 miles directly east from Woodford.

As a fan of low winter mins this is a bit of a shame, it seems to me that Rostherne will have much more in common with Ringway than Woodford, maybe even milder. One of England's coldest stations for winter mins is gone. R.I.P!

[Interitus]

Doing a quick google threw up a thread from a local forum for the area where earlier this month someone contacted the Met Office regarding the station and received the following reply -

Thank you for your email.

The weather station based at Woodford was closed on the 28th May 2012. Full preparations for the new site at Rostherne are not yet in place, once a period of quality control is completed the data from this site can be used. Until this point please can you refer to the Leek station data which will be the closest station alternative to Woodford.

The website will be updated with the removal of Woodford.

We apologise for any inconvenience while the changes are put in place.

Refer to the Leek station data, is that meant to be funny?

[Cloudman]

Does anyone have a source for the Rostherne data set yet ?

[Terminal Moraine]

Doing a quick google threw up a thread from a local forum for the area where earlier this month someone contacted the Met Office regarding the station and received the following reply -

Thank you for your email.

The weather station based at Woodford was closed on the 28th May 2012. Full preparations for the new site at Rostherne are not yet in place, once a period of quality control is completed the data from this site can be used. Until this point please can you refer to the Leek station data which will be the closest station alternative to Woodford.

The website will be updated with the removal of Woodford.

We apologise for any inconvenience while the changes are put in place.

Refer to the Leek station data, is that meant to be funny?

It does make you wonder. Absolutely no comparison between Woodford and the station at Thorncliffe near Leek. The former is a low lying site in north west England and the latter is at about 300m on the western side of the Peak District.

It's the equivalent of looking at data from Buxton when you want to know the weather conditions near Burton upon Trent.

[March Blizzard]

Does anyone have a source for the Rostherne data set yet ?

I would like to know, too. They MetO seem to be dragging their heels about it, Woodford has been offline for about 4 months now. I just hope they sort it out by winter, not having an official station close to the 2nd largest conurbation in the country for so long is bad form.

[Interitus]

It's ridiculous that they had to close the station at Manchester airport in the first place breaking the continuity of 58 years of records, when they still record conditions for METARs.

Anyway, some meteorological data has been recorded at Rostherne Mere already by the likes of the British Geological Survey and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. But it appears that this is to be a new site nearby as shown by this planning application by the Met Office -

http://planning.cheshireeast.gov.uk/ApplicationDetails.aspx?pr=11/4301M

Interestingly, the application was made in November last year and approved this February, well in advance of the closure of Woodford so they really should be sorted by now.

[Weather-history]

If Woodford is closed, where on earth is Philip Eden getting data for Woodford from then? You can see clearly here, he has data for Woodford for last month

http://www.climate-uk.com/monthly/1208.htm

Edited September 29, 2012 by Weather-history

[Interitus]

If Woodford is closed, where on earth is Philip Eden getting data for Woodford from then? You can see clearly here, he has data for Woodford for last month

http://www.climate-u...onthly/1208.htm

Yes, this question has been asked on the COL forum but Mr Eden hasn't replied; also Rostherne data is appearing in weather log -

http://www.uktrail.com/colchat/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=490

[Thundery wintry showers]

It says in the "asterisk" information at the bottom that the Woodford data is estimated.

[Alan Medlock Valley]

I record similar minimums as Woodford sometimes even colder, I live in a potent valley frost hollow too, and it is a shame that I cannot compare my low mins to Woodford's anymore. It used to be fun to compare.

[toggerob]

Woodford was always good for gauging data at lower levels, although a 25 minute walk from my house means I can see across the Cheshire Plain from Whaley Moor. Buxton is now the site I use for reference given it's proximity 7 miles away and the relative same height in comparison.

[Terminal Moraine]

It says in the "asterisk" information at the bottom that the Woodford data is estimated.

Although it's not entirely clear whether it's all the data, or just the sunshine data, which is estimated.

[Weather-history]

Although it's not entirely clear whether it's all the data, or just the sunshine data, which is estimated.

How can you estimate any data, though? You may as well not have any stations if you are going to estimate. How can you estimate rainfall? We had a trememdous thunderstorm here which missed Woodford last month, how can you estimate rainfall under that scenario?

Edited September 29, 2012 by Weather-history

[Terminal Moraine]

How can you estimate any data, though? You may as well not have any stations if you are going to estimate. How can you estimate rainfall? We had a trememdous thunderstorm here which missed Woodford last month, how can you estimate rainfall under that scenario?

Agree with you entirely. I wasn't condoning the fact that any data was estimated, merely commenting on it.

[March Blizzard]

Just noticed on BBC north west tonight that they have data for the new Rostherne weather station, it was showing recent rainfall amounts and it was on the list of locations. Nothing on the MO website, though. Perhaps we will be seeing it up and running soon on the observations page.

[Interitus]

On the meto web site it showed up as the warmest (8.2c) and sunniest (0.2hrs - wow!) location in NW England for 24hrs to 2100 on 26/11.

Woodford was a SYNOP station so you'd expect it to be replaced with one but it hasn't shown up in the reports so far so maybe it's not. The code is supposedly 03351 but it doesn't show on weathercast yet or the datagovuk met office site either.