How Not to Measure Temperature, Part 33

Until now, most of the surface temperature measurement stations I’ve highlighted as substandard locations for measuring temperature accurately have been in the USA. Today, courtesy of Geoff Sherrington, we are treated to the sight of the main Australian historic site, Melbourne metropolitan, near LaTrobe St, Melbourne. He reports it has max-min temp records daily since 1855 to late 2007.

Yet look at the pictures, this station is only 2 meters from a sidewalk, and a couple of meters more from a major street intersection and voluminous traffic. Hardly the best place to measure temperature. This site demonstrates the growing trend of climate monitoring stations that have been gradually surrounded by increasingly closer urban influences, and demonstrates that the problem is not unique to the USA.

Here are some additional pictures, click for large versions.

And a satellite image of downtown Melbourne showing the intersection is available at Windows Live Maps

UPDATE: Kristen Brynes has offered a couple of photos she had available taken from different angles of the same site, see them below. Thanks Kristen.

Additionally, the Lat/Lon of this station is:

-37.8075, 144.9700

A PDF document from Australias BOM lists the METADATA for this site and is available here