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Would you say that its climate is oceanic, humid subtropical or perhaps even Mediterranean that borderlines on semi-arid? On climate maps, it's usually listed under "temperate maritime", except that its summers are far too hot to be oceanic (summer mean is around 23C) and it also seems too dry to be Cfa (notice the average afternoon humidity).
Classifying this climate has always been tricky, at least to me. What do you think? How would you classify it?
A mix between Mediterranean and humid subtropical. It has Mediterranean temperatures, but the dry season isn't as pronounced. Let's just call it "subtropical"
I'm tempted to call it Mediterranean, but it lacks the characteristic summer dryness -- the driest summer month has 40 mm of rain whereas the wettest winter month has 55 mm. The hottest month surpasses the 22 C isotherm required for humid subtropical though. I'd probably just call it temperate-semiarid. It might technically be Oceanic but it clearly has very little in common with London or Seattle. Still, I think the Oceanic category is a lot broader than most people seem to think.
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Originally Posted by ChesterNZ
I'm tempted to call it Mediterranean, but it lacks the characteristic summer dryness -- the driest summer month has 40 mm of rain whereas the wettest winter month has 55 mm. The hottest month surpasses the 22 C isotherm required for humid subtropical though. I'd probably just call it temperate-semiarid. It might technically be Oceanic but it clearly has very little in common with London or Seattle. Still, I think the Oceanic category is a lot broader than most people seem to think.
Under my 'Ultimate Climate Classification System', they are Btb, Subtropical Semi Arid Hot Summer. That fits looking at all the data
A mix between Mediterranean and humid subtropical. It has Mediterranean temperatures, but the dry season isn't as pronounced. Let's just call it "subtropical"
Shouldn't humid subtropical climates be a bit humid?
Wagga Wagga's summers are barely moist. Afternoon humidity is mostly under 30%.
It's either Cfa or BSk. The rainfall is too uniform through the year to be Csa, but you could make an argument in terms of rain days, there's 2.5x more rain days in July compared to January. There might also be too much rainfall for a semi-arid classification because I'm not 100% that I'm calculating it right. Maybe it makes sense, mathematically, to find the threshold like that, but it does seem pretty arbitrary.
I'm getting conflicting information from wiki in terms of semi-aridness, with 'h' either meaning a yearly mean temp >18C (which Wagga Wagga does not have) or meaning the coldest month has a mean temp >0C (which Wagga Wagga does have). So it could be BSh or BSk depending on what you might think best represents a climate. I'd go with the yearly mean personally.
It's either Cfa or BSk. The rainfall is too uniform through the year to be Csa, but you could make an argument in terms of rain days, there's 2.5x more rain days in July compared to January. There might also be too much rainfall for a semi-arid classification because I'm not 100% that I'm calculating it right. Maybe it makes sense, mathematically, to find the threshold like that, but it does seem pretty arbitrary.
I'm getting conflicting information from wiki in terms of semi-aridness, with 'h' either meaning a yearly mean temp >18C (which Wagga Wagga does not have) or meaning the coldest month has a mean temp >0C (which Wagga Wagga does have). So it could be BSh or BSk depending on what you might think best represents a climate. I'd go with the yearly mean personally.
Köppen's demarkation point in case of Wagga Wagga is at 441.4 mm with the precipitation patterns it has (significant precipitation in the summer half, but a majority during winter).
My climate is oceanic (using the -3 marker) in spite of receiving only 90 % of Wagga Wagga's annual rainfall, so I don't see the contradiction in it being Cfa, given that Cfa is Dfa's warmer cousin.
Seems to be a pretty solid Cfa to me. Not the most typical one, but Cfa nonetheless.
With 570mm and 104 rain days, and not a very high evaporation rate, it's too wet to be semi arid. It would need less than 451 mm to be semi arid according to Koeppen, this gets 573mm, close to 1.3X the threshold.
With such hot summers, high sunshine hours, high diurnal range and low humidity, it's not very oceanic. January averages 24C and highs are almost 32C, too hot to be oceanic.
48% of rain falls in the high sun half of the year, 52% falls in the low sun half. The driest summer month still gets 73% of the wettest winter month. Far above 1/3 or even any level arguable for Mediterranean.
Solid Cfa--modest precipitation, hot summers, and evenly distributed precipitation.
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