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Yes I do. Certainly on par with the Northern Med. Why not? Does Miami record more sun than Rome?
And no one claims that the Foster doesn't record more sunshine that the CS. It does. But by 600 hours? There is something wrong with that figure.
The problem in all of this is that our stupid meteo agency in this country didn't think sunshine hours were worth bothering with anymore. We could have easily had a Kipp Zonen sun sensor at every airport which I doubt would be as expensive as one air base in Afghanistan costs per day. This country has every priority wrong. They are also moving ahead with the wrong computer model for the next stage of weather modelling.
Even though August finished with 3.91" of rain, above normal, drought has not improved in western New York. There is still extreme drought less than 15 miles south of me. Trees are losing their leaves and turning brown and grass is dead. The lack of drought improvement was mostly due to the record heat and the rains coming mostly as heavy but infrequent downpours (only 8 days of rain in August) which didn't allow much to soak into the ground and then heat and dryness would persist for several more days until another heavy rain.
The problem in all of this is that our stupid meteo agency in this country didn't think sunshine hours were worth bothering with anymore. We could have easily had a Kipp Zonen sun sensor at every airport which I doubt would be as expensive as one air base in Afghanistan costs per day. This country has every priority wrong. They are also moving ahead with the wrong computer model for the next stage of weather modelling.
Their justification as to why NOAA doesn't record sunshine hour is here
Why is it so hard to believe that the SE US is a sunny place overall? The Mediterranean actually has a season where it's somewhat "gloomy" (winter) the SE US is the exact same way (slightly gloomy in winter) but the grand majority of the year is very sunny. I find 2,300 hours for Charleston way harder to believe than 2,800. I hate and I will emphasize HATE using anecdotal evidence but as someone who's lived in this climate for 18 out of my 24 years of life, I will definitely attest that this is indeed a fairly sunny climate. 60% sunshine (which translates to 2,628 hours) wouldn't be that hard to believe, but 52-53%? No.
Do people automatically assume that a climate that's fairly rainy and humid is gloomy or something? I also think a lot of people on here exaggerate how sunny the Med is.
Also (anecdotally) I would say Miami probably averages in the ballpark of 65-70% possible sunshine year-round (which translates to between 2,847 and 3,066 hours). I would definitely say it's sunny about 2/3rds of the time here.
Why is it so hard to believe that the SE US is a sunny place overall? The Mediterranean actually has a season where it's somewhat "gloomy" (winter) the SE US is the exact same way (slightly gloomy in winter) but the grand majority of the year is very sunny. I find 2,300 hours for Charleston way harder to believe than 2,800. I hate and I will emphasize HATE using anecdotal evidence but as someone who's lived in this climate for 18 out of my 24 years of life, I will definitely attest that this is indeed a fairly sunny climate. 60% sunshine (which translates to 2,628 hours) wouldn't be that hard to believe, but 52-53%? No.
Do people automatically assume that a climate that's fairly rainy and humid is gloomy or something? I also think a lot of people on here exaggerate how sunny the Med is.
Also (anecdotally) I would say Miami probably averages in the ballpark of 65-70% possible sunshine year-round (which translates to between 2,847 and 3,066 hours). I would definitely say it's sunny about 2/3rds of the time here.
Greece is very Mediterranean yet very few parts of Greece have over 2800 hours (dark gray shading) of sunshine and only the east coast of Crete and some of the Southeast Aegean Islands are shaded in pink (above 2900 hours). Most parts of Greece have 2200-2400 hours of sunshine which is not far off from what Northern Illinois gets. Then again Greece is quite mountainous.
I think if anything the CS is unreliable and underestimates, I have no doubt that SE US is a relatively sunny place, but I find it hard to believe the SE is sunnier than a lot of the med, which generally records over 1000 hours of sunshine in summer alone, and winters aren't exactly gloomy either, averaging over 100 hours in most med climates with a CS recorder.
I've lived in a med climate for a year and the number of blue done sky days is just so many, during summer you can go weeks without seeing a cloud, and likewise Autumn and Spring have long streaks of clear days, even winter has many such days. I find it hard to believe that places in SE US which are humid and get plenty of rain and thunderstorms (and thus cloud) are sunnier than med climates.. That's my problem.
The article above shows the problems with the CS sensor
This was in fact what I was reading, although the above article is good too
I'm just interested in this because I wish there was a reliable standardised way of measuring sunshine that every country followed.. Foster may be the best, but it's very difficult to compare readings from country to country seeing as the article above shows the problems with cloudy/ clear days
The last two weeks I've spent on the med coast in southern France had 12 totally clear days without a cloud, and two days that were partly cloudy but still over 50% sunshine, and it seems every time I come here it's the same story, summer sunshine % here feels like it should be at least 80%
The thing is yes, the SE US gets plenty of rain and thunderstorms but a lot of that is from short-lived storms, where it's cloudy and stormy for maybe an hour and sunny the rest of the day. It's not unusual to get long streaks of clear days in the SE either.
Also the whole sunny thing with the Med is blown out of proportion. Nice averages 2700 hours and Rome averages about 2500 of sunshine. Sure, not gloomy by any means but hardly the sunny mecca people make it out to be on this forum.
I don't believe the SE is sunnier than the Med, but certainly just as sunny.
2700 hours is noticeably sunnier than Boston (2200 hours on the CS recorder) and not that much lower than some "sunshine meccas". coastal Maine s has decently high sunshine for a cool, wet climate. No winter cloudy period+ low convection ?
The thing is yes, the SE US gets plenty of rain and thunderstorms but a lot of that is from short-lived storms, where it's cloudy and stormy for maybe an hour and sunny the rest of the day. It's not unusual to get long streaks of clear days in the SE either.
Also the whole sunny thing with the Med is blown out of proportion. Nice averages 2700 hours and Rome averages about 2500 of sunshine. Sure, not gloomy by any means but hardly the sunny mecca people make it out to be on this forum.
I don't believe the SE is sunnier than the Med, but certainly just as sunny.
Although remember that those figures are CS data, so Nice would likely be close to 3,000 with a Foster (2,730 with CS currently) and Rome closer to 2,750 (2500 with CS)
It's annoying that there isn't a truly accurate recorder that is used globally, because until there is we'll just never know. I'm not doubting the SE US is sunny at all, I'd have to live there to make a claim for it myself, I just wondered as because it's so humid a lot of the time that I guessed summers would be mostly sunny, but with clouds in the sky most days, not clear blue skies like on west coast or the med?
I wonder if there are other sites in the world with data from a foster recording device that we could compare, not just in the US? As I have mentioned before the CS seems to under record sunshine here and so probably does elsewhere too, I think the US probably has the correct sunshine hours, it's just that everywhere else needs inflating slightly to compensate
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