It’s hotter than reported

[Bubblebathbefore8]

Why are the reports of high temperatures being played down?

Gosport is coastal - will be cooler than inland from there, it was 38c not far from there earlier

Someone else will know more but I guess they get data from official stations. I was a bit surprised too that Gosport was the highest and not somewhere less coastal.

33 reported on weather apps for my location. It was 39 outside today.

They have rules for measuring temperature eg in weather boxes north facing or whatever.
So not so much under reporting as consistent measuring?

I'd imagine that home thermometers aren't as accurate as the equipment and protocols used for official weather reports

What makes you say it was 39? Car?

The official temperatures are taken at official weather stations and the thermometers in them are protected from direct sunlight and from wind
The weather stations are also positioned so heat isn’t being reflected off a building on to them for example. It means the temperatures we experience are often higher as we are in microclimates that are warmer.

Took my thermapen kitchen temp probe into the garden today and it read 33.1 at peak, felt about right. South Coast.

The temp is measured in the shade.
It the way to get consistent results.

Yeah but my car said 37 today.

Also not accurate

By 'home' thermometers, I meant all ordinary ones used by ordinary punters, not just ones literally in the home.

I've always understood that offical reported temperatures are recorded in the shade?

My car told me it was 41 this afternoon. But yes, it’s a car and not a weather station and not in the standard measuring. So the temperature in full sun etc are often much higher than the official recorded. It’s the only way to make them fair and consistent.

Was that after you'd been driving for 5-10 minutes, or after it had been stationary for a while?

We measured classroom heat for maths. The lowest ( excluding air conditioned library) was 24 and the highest was an SLT office at 32. It was hotter outside but felt not too bad when we had a breeze.
We are 20 minutes from Gosport

Yes, exactly. When you measure the temperature in the sun it's much higher.

It was 35c in the shade in my garden today. It's on a fence line that gets no direct sunlight ever. It tends to be fairly accurate. The official temps down here were reported around 31c.

It said 37 in the shade in my garden this afternoon. Home Counties. Sweltering.

We measures home in the shade after an hour woth several different thermostats and always get hotter temps than the official.

39 in my London garden in the shade this afternoon.

I assume the car is measuring the temperature somewhere low down, with the hot road influencing it. But I’m off to google as I don’t know!

Same, 38.7 in the damp and dark part of my Birmingham garden.

Sun baking down on a thermometer, and lots of other things, don't represent the actual temperature of the air (temperature is basically the average heat of all the particles in a given space, not how hot the sun can cook a thermometer to).

Weather stations do, and are protected from the other things that will make the reading not accurate.

I'm always surprised at how many people don't know that temperatures are always measured in the shade. We were forecast 30 degrees today. I think we got up to 29. Then 30 tomorrow and 31 on Friday. Then it starts to go down and will be 19 degrees by Tuesday.

I can get some very exaggerated temperatures depending on where I put the thermometer. Always in the shade.

The sun heats the walls of the house and the ground which then re-radiates, boosting the temperature in the immediate area.