Climate Battle: Belfast, Northern Ireland vs. Sandspit, BC

[dunno what to put here]

For days of snow lying, snow has to be covering more than 50% of the ground at 9am (9am - 9pm is how the Met Office keep daily records, which I find annoying, but is more convenient I suppose).

[nei]

whoops I meant to say days of snow falling, as that would be the best way to compare to Canadian days of snow > 0.2 mm.

[dunno what to put here]

Oh, then I have no idea. Probably just snow being observed falling from the sky, rather than accumulating. The Shetland Islands average a few days of snow falling in October but less than 1 day of snow lying.

[sulkiercupid]

Belfast is just a less snowy version of Sandspit, so I choose the latter for reasons of interest. Both are a C-/D+ grade for their lukewarm summers.

[flamingGalah!]

Originally Posted by nei

Those are days of snow falling maps not snow accumulation maps. Sandspit records 19 days of snow (> 0.2 mm) falling. Wikipedia's total says 69 but that doesn't match totaling each month individually. Looking at these UK maps:

Met Office: UK mapped climate averages

the highest color is only 14. What is the British threshold for snow lying? Either way it appears Sandspit is much snowier. The previous town I lived had 44 days / year with snow falling.

Yes in the UK a single flake of snow falling from the sky is classed as "snow falling" (this is also how the bookmakers class a white Christmas). We don't have accumulation maps, only days of snow lying. Many places in lowland Britain wouldn't usually get any more than an inch or two of lying snow for a day or so & coastal areas don't even get that.

Where I live on the south coast we don't get snow every winter (we had none at all last winter) & if we do it's normally no more than a dusting that melts within a few hours. In December 2010 we had 5 inches of snow here, which layed on the ground for a week & that was the most snow in Portsmouth recorded since 1982, so heavy snow here is rare...

[Weatherfan2]

Both are terrible climates but I would choose Belfast.

[nei]

Originally Posted by flamingGalah!

Yes in the UK a single flake of snow falling from the sky is classed as "snow falling" (this is also how the bookmakers class a white Christmas). We don't have accumulation maps, only days of snow lying.

It's harder to find stats of days of snow lying/falling than accumulation numbers in the US. For a white christmas the US weather service definition is at least 1 inch (2.5 cm) of snow on the ground.

[burloak]

Sandspit

Higher sunshine hours, even though rainier