The raw articles for this whole blog idea have been provided for me by Lance Pidgeon AKA Siliggy around sceptic circles so it is mostly a guest post by him – thanks Lance.
On the 2nd of July 2017 the BoM weather station at Goulburn Airport recorded a very nippy morning and if you were quick at checking the BoM www page you might have been lucky to see minus 10.4 logged.
The story was told at the time by Dr. Jennifer Marohasy at her web site – “Bureau Erases Goulburn Record Minimum Temperature: Set Sunday 2 July 2017 – 4July 2017”
jennifermarohasy.com/2017/07/bureau-erases-goulburn-record-minimum-temperature-set-sunday-2-july-2017/
I chipped in after a few days with: – “BoM fiddling Goulburn minimum temperature 2nd July 2017 reveals extent of errors in BoM AWAP temperature maps 6Jul2017”
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5206
and I also blogged a wrap after a “month of BoM shooting itself in the foot” Wow – reminds me how sceptics made front page of “The Australian”
“Persistent truth telling climate sceptics cause the BoM to shaft itself again 1Aug2017”
www.warwickhughes.com/blog/?p=5246
Graham Lloyd’s well informed series of articles for years in “The Australian” critical of BoM gave the hypersensitive pompous bureaucracy plenty to hyperventilate to itself about. Add to that the truth-telling comments by climate sceptics high-lighting the Goulburn Airport and Thredbo July 2017 temperature reporting irregularities by BoM also reported by the press understandably lead to the apoplectic giant BoM setting up a 2017 “Review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Automatic Weather Stations” by an international panel. The panel had five members – three from New Zealand and two from the BoM.
A pdf of the BoM’s 2017 “Review of the Bureau of Meteorology’s Automatic Weather Stations” can be downloaded here.
www.bom.gov.au/inside/Review_of_Bureau_of_Meteorology_Automatic_Weather_Stations.pdf
There must have been FOI requests for correspondence surrounding this 2017 review because two pdf’s of FOI30-6150 can be downloaded off the BoM www site – the newest by data is labelled Part1
www.bom.gov.au/foi/release/FOI30-6150_DocumentSet_ForRelease_Redacted_r_Part1.pdf
The oldest by date is labelled Part2.
www.bom.gov.au/foi/release/FOI30-6150_DocumentSet_ForRelease_Redacted_r_Part2.pdf
Both redacted pdf’s of the FOI30-6150 release are shown here
search.bom.gov.au/s/search.html?query=FOI30-6150&collection=bom&Submit=Search
along with the top URL “Disclosure Log” which is an interesting list of FOI material released by BoM since 2010. Plenty to research there.
www.bom.gov.au/foi/disclosure.shtml

Now to the meat of todays blog by Lance. If I add any point it will be [in brackets]
BoM tried to blame a faulty AWS but Lance points out how in the pdf doc ITR637 testing in 1994 at the makers “ALMOS” in the US – BoM only ever specified that AWS to record down to -10. Not colder than minus 10.!!
Lance text below here
From a Bureau of Meteorology FOI release the following internal email contents after the public had noticed temperatures not being recorded below -10.4 degrees.
“The equipment wasn’t faulty. The purchase specification required operation down to -10 ˚C, so the words need to be carefully written.”
Just how independant is this advice?
Page 77 of this PDF
www.bom.gov.au/foi/release/FOI30-6150_DocumentSet_ForRelease_Redacted_r_Part1.pdf
Where was this specified? I
A big clue is in this same BoM document mentioned on page 88 of the PDF. So hard to aquire it needed to be sent from New Zealand.
“Bruce Hartley has kindly forwarded ITR 637 summarising the tests on the AWS ADC cards.
The test results on P4 indicate that the 4-wire resistance measurement (which answers an
earlier question of mine) does not perform as well as might be expected”
And from that document we read;
“4. CONCLUSIONS
a) The performance of the resistance channels of the ALMOS AWS does not meet Bureau
Specification A2671 [1] requirement for electrical system accuracy over the full scale range of -10
to 55 °C.”
Here is that hard to obtain document. See attached. ITR637 INSTRUMENT TEST REPORT NUMBER 637 – Summary Report on ALMOS A.W.S. Tests – Jane Warne Senior Physicist Physics Laboratory BoM 21Oct1994
www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/ITR637.pdf
So the “full range” specified in A2671 was -10 to +55. When Australia had recorded much colder.
“Testing of the MSI1 card at the Bureau’s metrology area and the vendor’s facility in
1994 determined that the card would not report temperatures where the resistance
was equivalent to a temperature below –10.4°C. Subsequently, a new model card
(MSI2) was developed and procured from the vendor, with testing at the Bureau’s
metrology area in 1999 showing this card could operate accurately and successfully
at temperatures down to –25°C.”
www.bom.gov.au/inside/Review_of_Bureau_of_Meteorology_Automatic_Weather_Stations.pdf
Not only did problems pop up in Goulburn and Thredbo in 2017, with automatic weather stations being the primary instrument from late 1996, this problem was general until sometime after the mentiond 1999 test. ITR657 also attached.
Link to ITR657 INSTRUMENT TEST REPORT NUMBER 657
www.warwickhughes.com/agri16/ITR657.pdf
There are even odd accuracy specs mentioned in it.
Lance
[Later when I (wazz) have time there is much BoM pomposity to puncture in the two FOI30-6150 pdf’s – just now I lack the time but readers are welcome to post any examples that gets them laughing]