Moans, ramps and banter

[B87]

 marky810 take 10-15% off US sunshine values to compare them to the rest of the world. 

[Alderc 2.0]

 B87 why the over estimation?

Have to say though I find it surprising places like Yuma a listed as the sunniest in the world given its influence by something of a monsoon season. In reality I’d be very very surprised if it’s as sunny as somewhere like Luxor in Egypt. 

[B87]

 Alderc 2.0 The sun recorders they use count solar radiation as 'sunshine' when it is above 87W/m2, rather than the 120 elsewhere in the world. You can see the difference best along the US/Canada border, where the US cities all seem to be 200-400 hours higher than their Canadian counterparts, sometimes even in the same city (eg Detroit/Windsor).

There is a Campbell Stokes sunshine recorder in Blue Hill, MA (a suburb of Boston), which on average records 52.4% of possible sunshine per year, or around 2295 hours. This is far below the US measurement of 2634 hours. The US sensor value is about 15% too high.

 

Boston - Wikipedia

EN.WIKIPEDIA.ORG

If the UK measured sunshine the US way, then London would average around 1930 hours per year, with most of the south coast in the 2000-2300 range.

Edited February 26 by B87

[MP-R]

 Summer8906 Until this year I’d agree with sunnier. Since I started records, the cooler 2007-2013 years formed a duller period then 2014 onwards it’s become sunnier again… until the last 8 months!

[In Absence of True Seasons]

 B87 that's very interesting! That would describe why Seattle has on average, according to their stats, about 25% more sunshine per year than London, despite being renowned as the "dull city" in America. In equal measurements, I imagine London and Seattle would be closer to equal, although they do generally seem to have better summers than London, every time I check their forecast from May to Sept 

[raz.org.rain]

Looks like the other models are picking up on a warmer and drier trend now, fingers crossed for a warm and dry March.

[WYorksWeather]

 raz.org.rain I still wouldn't really describe it as warmer, yet. The ensembles are sticking resolutely to something perhaps average or at most a little above.

I do think at some point in the spring we will tap into some of the available heat and potentially get a very early warm spell. But no sign of it in the first week or so of March, which is probably as far as we can realistically look at the moment.

[East Lancs Rain]

Five years ago today, the UK has its warmest winter day on record. 21C in Wales and 20C in Manchester, where this time lapse was filmed. An incredible spell of weather. Hard to believe it’s been five years since then, time sure flies, a lot has happened in that time though..

[East Lancs Rain]

17 hours ago, RJBingham said:

No, they are not built to stay cool, they're built with little or no insulation, cold in the winter, stinking hot in the summer, I've spent 15 years in Victoria, and it gets plenty of cold days in the winter, some inland towns in Victoria and NSW get snow most winters, try spending a winter in Ballarat in a single brick house, makes me shiver just thinking about it. 

Do people not have central heating over there if it gets cold regularly in winter? And snow in Australia?? Don’t tell me they get more snow than the UK… 

[raz.org.rain]

 East Lancs Rain Tasmania and Victoria get pretty chilly winters, their climate overall isn't that far removed from our own. I think the higher ground in Victoria get heavy snowfall every year, they even have ski resorts there.

[cheese]

 In Absence of True Seasons They definitely have better summers. Seattle, Portland and to a lesser extent Vancouver all move under the influence of the semi-permanent North Pacific High during the summer and consequently have more reliably settled summers. It's a similar phenomenon to the Azores High that keeps Southern Europe hot, sunny and dry between May and September.

Then during the autumn, the influence of the high retreats and they get bombarded by heavy rain between October and March. They get far more rainfall than most places in the UK. 

Edited February 26 by cheese

[raz.org.rain]

 cheese I wonder if Azores Highs will become a permanent feature of our weather in the near future? It certainly seems to be heading in that direction, we're really not that far off from having a climate dominated by southerly systems.

[cheese]

 raz.org.rain the south coast to a limited extend already comes under the influence of the Azores high, they exhibit a similar kind of summer rainfall minimum pattern. It's possible that influence will extend north over time I suppose.

[cheese]

 RJBingham True. Australia is one of the few developed countries with even worse new build houses than the UK in terms of insulation & Australia sees a surprisingly high number of cold-related deaths in winter. You will probably feel colder in a Melbourne house in August than a Stockholm house in February. One of the first things I noticed when I visited Stockholm a few years ago was just how warm every building was in winter - definitely too warm sometimes.

Edited February 26 by cheese

[*Stormforce~beka*]

 Summer8906 The doom started last March mate ... So the last 12 months!!

 raz.org.rain When does it start?

[danm]

 In Absence of True Seasons

6 hours ago, In Absence of True Seasons said:

Yes, Seattle is effectively a "London if London were consistent" climate. Their winters are pretty dross, very similar to London, but their May to Sept periods are much more reliably better than London's. I often check Seattle's weather when we are having a particularly bad spell of weather in the UK during a summer month, and every single time I've done so, the weather in Seattle has been markedly better. 

They get alot of rainfall and cloudy days, sure, but most of that is condensed to the Oct to April period. For London, wet, cool and cloudy summers are the default and summers like 2022 are the outlier. Whereas Seattle gets a "London 2022 summer" most years. Or at least, close to it.

This thread is prone to a little exaggeration at times!

London’s July average maxima is 23.9c (25c over the last 10 years). Seattle’s is 25.2c. Yes, Seattle is sunnier in Summer than London, and a little drier. But they don’t get 2022 style Summers most years, if they did their averages would be better. London’s July average daytime temperature in July 2022 was 27.2c.

I really wouldn’t say London’s default Summers are cool, wet and cloudy. Our Summers are mixed - some are cool and wet, others are warm and dry and most Summers have a combination of the two. 

Edited February 27 by danm

[raz.org.rain]

 danm reminds me of this article...

UK is no longer a cold country and must adapt to heat, say climate scientists | Climate crisis | The Guardian

AMP.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Experts call on UK officials to prepare for periods of extreme heat or risk thousands of excess deaths

 

 *Stormforce~beka* I'm going for the second week of March personally, a part of me thinks the second half of March will be very warm and dry 

[cheese]

I think summer in most of England is definitely fairly cloudy by default, with only the south coast exceeding 50% of the total possible sunshine in any month. Definitely not wet though. Cool is pretty subjective really.

Places like Cumbria and western Scotland definitely fall under the cool/cloudy/wet summer category though.

Edited February 27 by cheese

[raz.org.rain]

 cheese found this a while ago 

[cheese]

 raz.org.rain eh, that's far too simplistic. London certainly doesn't have colder winters than Liverpool or Glasgow for example, and summers in Leeds/Hull/Sheffield etc are warmer than summers in Plymouth or Swansea (in terms of average highs at least). The average high at my nearest station is 21.4C in July, which is on par with Birmingham even though we're about 100 miles further north. Hull has average highs of 22.0C in July which is higher than Bristol - I bet very few people would expect that to be the case but it shows how being further east in the UK is often better than simply being further south (being further south and east is obviously the best bet).

You could argue that the SE quadrant of the UK is more continental though, especially East Anglia and Kent (though more historically than currently as Kent in particular has become pretty rubbish for snow since the 90s & the decline of midwinter easterlies).

Edited February 27 by cheese

[B87]

 danm Seattle has never had a month as warm as July 2006 or July 2018.

[RJBingham]

 raz.org.rain Ballarat, a city with a population of around 120000, gets snow most years, Canberra, the capital of Australia sometimes gets snow.

only about 20% of new build houses are double glazed, crazy.

The Peculiar Climate of Ballarat

HOLLYHOCKHILL.COM.AU

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We Ballaratians have always copped our fair share of banter from outsiders when it comes to the weather, and sometimes we may even be guilty of a little complaining about it ourselves! Relative to the rest of...

 

Edited February 27 by RJBingham

[marky810]

 B87 How do the americans measure their sunshine hours? In what way is it different?

[MP-R]

 raz.org.rain typical Guardian. We’ve never been a ‘cold’ country and there’s always been the need to deal with heat!

[danm]

 cheese yes this is true, London definitely doesn't have colder Winters than Liverpool, Manchester or Glasgow. 

What I would say though is the SE can be prone to a little more of the extremes (albeit quite rarely) than other parts of the UK due to our close proximity to the continent. 

Think about it this way - in Summer, a subtle change in wind direction can mean we tap into real heat from off the near continent. The source of our most notable heat is always from the S or SE, which puts us in the firing line. 

In Winter, whilst the north absolutely does get colder winters, on the rare occasions that we get a proper easterly, the SE can often be under the coldest air. Seeing as our most bitter winter weather tends to come from the east, there are those rare occasions when the SE can experience by far the coldest weather in the country. It just happens far too infrequently these days. 

So in both Summer and Winter, this part of the country can tap into both the coldest and hottest air available. In Summer, heat only really comes from the south. In Winter though, bitter cold doesn't just come from the north, it can come from the East.

Hence why I would say this part of the country has a slight continental feel, by UK standards....