In today's CC thread, I reported that last night's overnight minimum temperature here in Edinburgh was 15.1°C at Edinburgh Gogarbank and 15.3°C at the botanic gardens in Edinburgh. On that same same thread, Jerry who used to live here in Edinburgh not all that long ago then backed me up with that one by saying that Edinburgh had taken the November prize for Scotland, although it was the figure of 15.1°C which he quoted for that, rather than the figure of 15.3°C for the botanic gardens in Edinburgh which I had believed to have got that record.
Not long afterwards, even the legendary Sean Batty from STV then more or less supported me by confirming on Twitter that the temperature here in Edinburgh, Leuchars and another location in the Moray Firth region had indeed, stayed above 15°C all night as well. He didn't give any indications of any records on that tweet, but he did say that the vast majority of stations had beaten that previous record from 2007 which had been set at Dyce.
It was not long after that though, that the Met Office then posted on Twitter that the provisional record was only 14.6°C as set at Prestwick and Kinloss, rather than any of those figures which I had quoted for here in Edinburgh which on both occasions, I had even produced from the actual raw SYNOP/BUFR data in order to be as accurate about that as possible.
In the case of Edinburgh Gogarbank, the raw SYNOP/BUFR data for 6am this morning confirmed the overnight minimum temperature to be 15.1°C, and this was even backed up by the raw SYNOP data for 9am this morning.
Now, I could have started a new thread here in order raise the question of why Edinburgh wasn't getting that record despite the fact that we had recorded those figures which I had reported but instead of that, I decided to pose that question to the actual experts themselves, so I then replied to that Met Office tweet and raised my question there as to why this was the case.
I can now say that I have now had a very nice response to that which confirms that I am right to a certain extent because the raw SYNOP/BUFR data does give the exact figure for the minimum temperature, but he then went to say that these figures only actually cover the preceding 12 hour period which in this case was 9pm on the previous evening up until 9am this morning.
However, the reply went on to say that when the Met Office are evaluating any temperature records, they go by the full preceding 24 hour period, rather then the 12 hour period which the raw SYNOP/BUFR data covers and it turns out that this information is also quoted on the Met Office website (you can get to that page by doing a Google search for Met Office Extremes). This means that the actual period which is covered by that actual record runs from 9am on the previous morning, rather than from 9pm on the previous night.
Looking at my own data, I noticed that the temperature at 9am yesterday morning was only 14.4°C at Edinburgh Gogarbank and 14.1°C at the botanic gardens and it turns out that these temperatures alone, were enough to scupper Edinburgh's chances of getting that record as our actual minimum temperature would therefore have been either at or below those values.
To me, it seems strange that a temperature reading from any given morning can have that effect on any chances of a record being set on the following night and even the guy who replied to my tweet had admitted that to be the case, although he did go on to say that this has actually been the tradition for more than a century. However, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on that.
Originally Posted by: johncs2016