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Regardless of stats, what would you say would be your perception of seeing a climate as a dry one? Obviously, it depends on what climate you yourself are used to but also what comes to mind when "dry" pops into your head based on imagery of landscape.
I would say, that to be perceived as dry for me, there might be very few rainy days in the year firstly, perhaps only 5-7 days of rainfall a month that are perceivable at the very most. Maybe even one or two times a week and no rain in between is where it starts to seem getting to be dry to me. In a temperate climate it seems that annual rainfall in the few hundred mm can qualify as dry. Usually, the dry climates are also associated with lots of sun, maybe more than 2000 hours, perhaps to 2500 and more, and high evaporation. It gets tricky with really cold climates, because as it gets cooler, and wet ground can be seen, including snow cover in winter and snow melt or drizzle in spring or fall, as traces of water predominate over the landscape I have a hard time perceiving it as dry. If I see traces of water or the chances of getting wet if I say fell on the ground (would my clothing get wet?) or bare my skin, I can't think "dry", even if precipitation amounts are low by mm.
To me, seeing wet ground or even snow or ice for lots of time, even if it it is not rainy or even cloudy, seems to cancel out the lowered precipitation in drier climate. I have a hard time perceiving any climate in the boreal forest as dry, nor subarctic or maritime climates. Vancouver, Seattle or the PNW doesn't seem dry to me, even if it has a summer that has a few dry months. North California isn't, but once you get to the Mediterranean climates of California, they are definitely dry. San Francisco seems to be getting towards dry.
In the US, I would tend to see anything east of the Great Plains as not really dry and the Great Plains themselves as marginally dry starting from the Midwest's border westward. Most of the Western US, I'd see more as dry, but if they have forest cover, and lots of snow, my psychological perception seems to hint at "not dry'. I would say, that for me only the driest parts of Canada, such as southern Alberta, the Okanagan, make me think "dry". That's dry enough that there's low grass and shrub. I think by the time grass goes brown in summer regularly (and not just a freak year), that climate seems dry. Even Calgary doesn't seem to be a dry climate to me (there are more trees and summer is fairly green).
For me, the US southwest, and a place like Phoenix or other areas in Arizona seems to be the prototypical "dry climate" for my mind. Maybe that Saguaro cactus-type desert image pops into my mind (yes I know it's limited to the Sonoran desert though Hollywood makes it a stand-in for many kinds of desert ).
I would perceive these climates as mostly dry: Koppen climate type B (desert and steppe climates), Tropical wet-and-dry or savannah (especially if the scene looks dry most of the year with just a brief "green season") and Mediterranean climates.
The other climates, be they maritime, tropical, humid continental, subarctic seem to evoke "dry" far less.
The problem is dry seems to not be easily separable from heat and coldness influences.
What's your personal definition (psychological perception) of a dry climate?
Lack of greenery/cracked ground is the first thing, plus blue skies predominating. Our rainfall over the past 12 months puts us in semi-arid territory, though it's still very green so you wouldn't think so, especially on a cloudy day - yet. Expect photos of dried up river beds and yellow grass from me in the summer unless it starts raining soon.
If I see more shrubbery vegetation, it's too dry for me. Driest place I've been is the Caribbean coast is Puerto Rico. That is considered to be semi-arid for the most part, few parts are arid. The rainfall is around 40 inches, but it's not high enough to overcome the trans-evaporation rate. That's too dry for me
Location: The western periphery of Terra Australis
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Officially under 250mm/10" is 'arid', and 250-500mm/10-20" is semi-arid, but as you say, that does not factor in things like evaporation, temperature, rainfall distribution.etc.
Like you say, many higher latitude climates with less than 500mm can feel quite wet. East Anglia in England, much of Eastern Europe, all have around 500mm yet they are pretty moist climates, with quite a few raindays, lots of cloud and a very green look.
Many monsoonal or wet/dry tropical climates can have high totals but the landscape etc has a more arid look most of the year. The African savanna is an example, or the northern Kimberley of WA. Wyndham, WA, gets as much rain as Seattle but the landscape there is almost desert-like.
If you looked at the vegetation here in Perth, especially with the weather of the past few years, it almost seems arid. Lots of brown, the forests have a pretty dry look: in comparison US cities, even the drier ones, seem very green. Melbourne seems a lot greener than here too. Kalgoorlie, on the edge of the desert, gets less sun than Perth. I think last we only got 65 raindays: one of the lowest ever, and half the mean of 119. I would consider LA is pretty dry climate: the local vegetation is chaparrel, more like a scrub, not even a dry woodland. It gets about 36 days of rain, less than most desert areas of Australia.
I'd consider a place to have an arid appearance if the vegetation was predominately scrub, or less than that amount of plant life. Somehow grassland doesn't have a dry appearance to me. Also with climate records, any month under 40 mm would strike me as kind of dry, and if a place had many months under 40 mm and no huge rainy season (like the Indian Monsoon) I'd consider it a "dry" place. For what it's worth, this has little relation with the arid or semi-arid thresholds for climate classification. If there was a lot of sun it feeds into the arid image, but it's not necessary for my conception of dryness.
I'd also say that if the ground wasn't dry, if it was wet, I wouldn't consider the place dry, at least at that particular time. So dry ground figures into it as well.
dry looking fields, savannah, scrub, like NW Victoria... to palm bushes, red earth like around Mildura, Vic, to treeless plains, which can be occupied by low grasses or nothing at all like the deserts of central Australia and the Nullabour plain.
Officially under 250mm/10" is 'arid', and 250-500mm/10-20" is semi-arid, but as you say, that does not factor in things like evaporation, temperature, rainfall distribution.etc.
Like you say, many higher latitude climates with less than 500mm can feel quite wet. East Anglia in England, much of Eastern Europe, all have around 500mm yet they are pretty moist climates, with quite a few raindays, lots of cloud and a very green look.
Many monsoonal or wet/dry tropical climates can have high totals but the landscape etc has a more arid look most of the year. The African savanna is an example, or the northern Kimberley of WA. Wyndham, WA, gets as much rain as Seattle but the landscape there is almost desert-like.
If you looked at the vegetation here in Perth, especially with the weather of the past few years, it almost seems arid. Lots of brown, the forests have a pretty dry look: in comparison US cities, even the drier ones, seem very green. Melbourne seems a lot greener than here too. Kalgoorlie, on the edge of the desert, gets less sun than Perth. I think last we only got 65 raindays: one of the lowest ever, and half the mean of 119. I would consider LA is pretty dry climate: the local vegetation is chaparrel, more like a scrub, not even a dry woodland. It gets about 36 days of rain, less than most desert areas of Australia.
That's the good thing about the UK I guess, southern and east England, and eastern Scotland are all dry but very green, though these areas can turn brown in summer, the parks of London turn brownish/yellowish often.
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