Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It's like some people dismiss rainfall readings of 0.01-0.09mm so why not the same for sun.
0.01-0.09 readings (for sun) has no bearing for me because I've seen a lot of totally overcast days in which the airport site somehow, records more than 0.5 hours, even on overcast days, which is totally wrong in my eyes.
I recall one time when it was very overcast here and yet the airport site recorded over 10 hours of sun which was totally wrong of course, fired off a email to them and they concurred a mistake was made, corrected two days later to just 1 hour which seems about right.
I've seen plenty of days which seemed zero to me too and then found the official figure is 0.something, but apart from blatant (and presumably rare) mistakes like the one you mentioned my theory is there's no point having official readings if you're not going to trust them. Maybe a separate 'under one hour' category including the 0s and the 0.1-0.9s might make more sense.
Invercargill had it's cloudiest May in 10 years, 2001 had 67 hours, this May 72 hours :-)
Also May 2011 had more sun than May 2001: it's the first time that Invercargill has since, 1972, had a big welcome :-)
So only 8 hours below the mean for a period I quoted earlier. EWS data not available yet from CliFlo.
Pleasing to see that the Albany readings are starting to look more sensible. Perhpas someone noticed that some earlier ones - trumping BOP and Gisborne-Hawkes Bay in unfavourable circumstances - looked ridiculous. However one will have to wait and see. The same can't yet be said for the overblown Paraparaumu EWS totals which are still far too high.
I've seen plenty of days which seemed zero to me too and then found the official figure is 0.something, but apart from blatant (and presumably rare) mistakes like the one you mentioned my theory is there's no point having official readings if you're not going to trust them. Maybe a separate 'under one hour' category including the 0s and the 0.1-0.9s might make more sense.
That's right. The mistake examples have no relevance. But again as I said earlier, the spectrum should really divided up making allowances for daylength, at least at a monthly level of refinement. 14 hours of sunshine here in December means more than the same at Scott Base. A statistical breakdown of the kind used for things like rainfall deciles could be useful:
Nil
Less than 10% (maybe combine the first two)
10%-30%
30%-70%
70-90%
Over 90%
100%/max recordable (perhaps combine these two).
I've seen plenty of days which seemed zero to me too and then found the official figure is 0.something, but apart from blatant (and presumably rare) mistakes like the one you mentioned my theory is there's no point having official readings if you're not going to trust them. Maybe a separate 'under one hour' category including the 0s and the 0.1-0.9s might make more sense.
Good point there ben86. I don't want to get into a long winded speech but like I've said before, I've seen several overcast days (at least in my part of the world) measuring no sun but other parts getting some. There was this other day where I didn't see the sun at all, in the city, and yet the airport recorded 1.5 hours which was so odd but considering but the airport site's located 10km south of the CBD site so...
I've seen plenty of days which seemed zero to me too and then found the official figure is 0.something, but apart from blatant (and presumably rare) mistakes like the one you mentioned my theory is there's no point having official readings if you're not going to trust them. Maybe a separate 'under one hour' category including the 0s and the 0.1-0.9s might make more sense.
It depends on how you find your feelings :-)
Like I said before, readings of 0.0 to 0.9 equals NIL. Only those mentioning over 1 hour or plus is worthwhile :-)
Last edited by koyaanisqatsi1; 06-10-2011 at 05:13 AM..
Like I said before, readings of 0.0 to 0.9 equals NIL. Only those mentioning over 1 hour or plus is worthwhile :-)
Not acceptable in any meteorological terminology or definitions. End of story. And if the day were 3 hours long, 0.9 hours of sun would seem mildy significant. You just don't get it.
In my record keeping, a "day with no sunshine" is a day with 0.10 hrs or less/none measured at all. Anything more would not be "sunless" and would still be counted in the total.
I think the correct term for small non zero numbers is negligible but then again "negligible" is subjective. Otherwise personal definitions should be clearly stated to remove any ambiguity.
I've seen plenty of days which seemed zero to me too and then found the official figure is 0.something, but apart from blatant (and presumably rare) mistakes like the one you mentioned my theory is there's no point having official readings if you're not going to trust them. Maybe a separate 'under one hour' category including the 0s and the 0.1-0.9s might make more sense.
Readings of 0.01-0.09 merits nothing to me at all.
As for for the Invercargill statistic - I was right all along - with 11 days recording NIL even with the 0.01-0.09 group being attached, making a grand total of 19 so the 1968 total has been written off
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
