On Monday, 26 December 2016 17:45:43 UTC, Crusader wrote:
On Monday, 26 December 2016 16:36:24 UTC, Ken Cook wrote:
Mercury thermometers being phased out at all MetO sites beginning 2017. Not sure what we'll get as replacement yet.
Ken
Copley
Teesdale

The "official" recording of Met office site temperature data has been switched to ERT thermometers for a quite a few years now, using mercury kit only as a backup. The Met Office observing Network, recently/currently being renamed SurfaceNet is totally electronic, and has been since the old defunct SAMOS network back around the Y2K era. SAMOS was the mainstay of the observing network from the mid 90s.

How come we never got to help rename it Boaty Mr Boatface or Nett Superficiality?
(I think it is time for me to go and play somewhere else, all this realism is deafening me to the truth.)

Mercury in glass has until recently been used as a backup...this has been stopped also by now at all MetO manned sites...or was instructed to have been stopped over a year ago! I believe a few sites may still keep mercury in the background store rooms etc.

Which work best in engine plumes on runways and what is their definition of "best"?

The remaining observation stations at third party sites or at the sites of collaborating organisations will have MIG thermometers taken away during 2017.