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The Seattle figure doesn't make sense when one considers that Vancouver averages 1,928 hours of sun and seems in line with the rest of the world. Even Victoria gets 2,193 hours.. although even I think that might be a bit high. I always thought Environment Canada didn't use the US method but the C-S methods used elsewhere.
With Victoria and Seattle being so close, (closer than Vancouver) maybe Seattle is closer to 2200 hours. Hmm. Maybe Blue Hill is not completely representative of Boston cause it seems when you compare Canada to US it is more like 200 hour difference, or less. Seattle gets 2019 hours (have also seen 2170 hrs), pretty close to Canada cities nearby.
2.10 Sunshine and Solar Radiation In Canada, bright sunshine observations are made using the Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, first developed in 1863. It consists of a 10-cm glass sphere which focuses sunlight on a card calibrated in hours. Sunlight burns a trace on the card, allowing the observer to determine to the nearest tenth of an hour the amount of sunshine that occurs on a given day. It should be noted that the recorder measures only "bright" sunshine, which is less than "visible" sunshine. For example, sunshine immediately after sunrise and just before sunset would not be bright enough to register. Values given are the totals for each month and year. Solar radiation, which is a measure of the sun's electro-magnetic energy, is available for a small number of stations across Canada. These data are presented for each measured radiation field, namely, global (RF1), diffuse (RF2), reflected (RF3), and net (RF4) radiation.
See above ... and there are more things than I have mentioned there, as well.
So do you think Windsor would be sunnier than Boston then? Using the C-S machine at Blue Hill, MA the hours are 2228, while Windsor, Ontario gets 2265 hours.
If you subtract 370 hours from the sunshine hours for Philadelphia, I end up with 2128 hours, which is a lot less than Windsor. There is no way Philadelphia is more cloudy than Detroit/Windsor. Impossible. I've been to Toronto around 4 times, in winter and summer, and no way are we even close to Toronto (2038 hours). That is a diff of less than 100 hours.
Excellent! The adjusted numbers make vastly more sense to me. As I once commented in an older thread, I once spent 12 months in Chicago and noted that the reported sunshine total for the period was about 2440 hours. This totally lacked credibility to me, and I never believed it was more than about 2150 - or perhaps even 2100 - in the terms I was used to.
Unfortunately in NZ a steady conversion exercise of replacing C-S with electronic measurements has already produced a rash of "new high" yearly totals and inflated values in general. A town previously ranking 125 hours or so below the 2 sunniest locations has suddenly become the new champion. "Tell that to the Marines". Unless the electronic results are scaled down later, any old-new comparisons will be meaningless for most sites.
Do you think Chicago, being on the landward sides of the prevailing wind direction, would be cloudier than Detroit/Windsor. Using your number of 2100 hours, it would be cloudier than Windsor.
Perhaps not, but as I'm spoiled with long summer days, the days in Rome in July for example would end too soon. BUT if the summers would be much longer and warmer, then I would take the shorter days.
The 48th parallel north was just a compromise, the 19 hour day here at summer solstice is a bit too much as well.
And I mentioned Stuttgart and Lyon just as an example where I actually could move to. Bucharest and Rostov-on-Don have better climates, but I would never move to those places.
So do you think Windsor would be sunnier than Boston then? Using the C-S machine at Blue Hill, MA the hours are 2228, while Windsor, Ontario gets 2265 hours.
If you subtract 370 hours from the sunshine hours for Philadelphia, I end up with 2128 hours, which is a lot less than Windsor. There is no way Philadelphia is more cloudy than Detroit/Windsor. Impossible. I've been to Toronto around 4 times, in winter and summer, and no way are we even close to Toronto (2038 hours). That is a diff of less than 100 hours.
I can't comment on your climates as I have no knowledge of them, but your comments sound reasonable. It could be that the Windsor values are a bit optimistic - if the C-S results aren't "centrally checked" (a practice which was followed for many years in NZ but later abandoned) then there can be issues of consistency, given the somewhat subjective nature of measurement. On the electronic side, perhaps Boston's numbers are particularly optimistic, making the 372 adjustment atypical. BTW, taking 58% of even the maximum astronomically measureable sun for Boston gives about 2575 hours at most.
Do you think Chicago, being on the landward sides of the prevailing wind direction, would be cloudier than Detroit/Windsor. Using your number of 2100 hours, it would be cloudier than Windsor.
That was just one particular 12 months remember - and it might have been 2150 or so ...
PS - having just looked at Env. Canada's data for Windsor, there are no values cited for sunshine!!
Last edited by RWood; 01-13-2013 at 01:43 PM..
Reason: additional note
Do you think Chicago, being on the landward sides of the prevailing wind direction, would be cloudier than Detroit/Windsor. Using your number of 2100 hours, it would be cloudier than Windsor.
I again emphasise the "horizon" - how it varies over the year (re obstructions and early/late sun). Without that knowledge of a site it's hard to even begin.
Do you think Chicago, being on the landward sides of the prevailing wind direction, would be cloudier than Detroit/Windsor. Using your number of 2100 hours, it would be cloudier than Windsor.
That sounds hard to believe. However, this table shows Chicago at 54% and Detroit at 53%; barely different.
Chicago does get its own lake effect cloudiness in certain situations. Where was that Windsor total sourced from? I don't trust "unofficial" sources much.
I don't know where these statistics are coming from though (I'm pretty sure St. Catharines airport doesn't record sunshine for example)
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