I see from an earlier post on this ng and from the MO web site that Solent
MRSC was the warmest place again yesterday. Having checked Live Search /
Multimap you may be interested to see the location - I think the screen is
in front of the house with red roofing and a hovercraft or two next door !
I'm not knocking the Coastguard who do a fantastic job but when it comes to
site exposure for an 'Offical' station surely a better site could have been
found?
Now if the site was ON Lee on Solent airfield I might believe the readings -
although I'm not sure how up to date the maps/photos are

Link here
http://maps.live.com/#JmJiPTUwLjg1Nj...I1OTc 5NDcyOA

Best Wishes

Richard
Horsham AWS

On Sun, 25 May 2008 07:53:05 +0100, "Richard Griffith"
wrote:

I see from an earlier post on this ng and from the MO web site that Solent
MRSC was the warmest place again yesterday. Having checked Live Search /
Multimap you may be interested to see the location - I think the screen is
in front of the house with red roofing and a hovercraft or two next door !
I'm not knocking the Coastguard who do a fantastic job but when it comes to
site exposure for an 'Offical' station surely a better site could have been
found?
Now if the site was ON Lee on Solent airfield I might believe the readings -

Richard
Horsham AWS

We've had discussions about this before (I live 5 miles up the road
from Solent and I did some comparative readings at the site with my
digital thermometer a year or two back) and the general conclusion was
IIRC that the site is representative of a seafront front garden in
Lee-on-the-Solent - but not of an open field site such as the airfield
behind it.

The central south and coastal SW facing location contribute to making
it a slightly "hot spot" in winds from the Northerly half of the
compass; it's a particularly sunny location too. Other factors are the
light pebbly underlying soil and the adjacent coastguard buildings on
the North/NE side of the screen. This man made windbreak + afternoon
sunshine makes for a nice warm garden in light winds from that side.
It makes the stevenson screen effect rather high too, IMO (sometimes
over 2 deg C but of course, all stevenson screens out in the open have
this problem to some extent, in similar conditions).

If the screen was located on a grassy part of the airfield behind, the
"hotspot" would be been less of an issue and I am puzzled why this
wasn't done. Coastguard search and rescue helicopters have operated
there continuously from when the screen was set up to the present day
and access shouldn't have been a problem. The airfield is fenced off
from the general public; equipment there would be secure.

--
Dave
Fareham.