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Was looking at the climates of Mediterranean cities and noticed some weird trends.
For example, some cities have high precipitation totals but a relatively lower amount of rainy days, and vice versa.
Bizerte, Tunisia: 627.9 mm of precipitation on 77.6 days. 0.124 days/mm
Nice, France: 791.3 mm of precipitation on 62.1 days. 0.078 days/mm
Why is this and what could lead some areas to punch above their weight in this regard?
Also, the station for Bizerte, TN is located about 13 km inland from the sea at the Sidi-Ahmed Airport. If it were located on the eastern or northern coast, I believe this rainfall average would be much higher.
If it’s all a Mediterranean climate with the same influence of the sea, shouldn’t the rainfall totals correlate more closely with the number of rainy days?
Was looking at the climates of Mediterranean cities and noticed some weird trends.
For example, some cities have high precipitation totals but a relatively lower amount of rainy days, and vice versa.
Bizerte, Tunisia: 627.9 mm of precipitation on 77.6 days. 0.124 days/mm
Nice, France: 791.3 mm of precipitation on 62.1 days. 0.078 days/mm
Why is this and what could lead some areas to punch above their weight in this regard?
Also, the station for Bizerte, TN is located about 13 km inland from the sea at the Sidi-Ahmed Airport. If it were located on the eastern or northern coast, I believe this rainfall average would be much higher.
If it’s all a Mediterranean climate with the same influence of the sea, shouldn’t the rainfall totals correlate more closely with the number of rainy days?
Both of the locations that you have provided here measure average precipitation days(>= 1mm), but in reality, the precipitation can be measured for example down to 0.1 mm, therefore these cities certainly have more precipitation days than what is being shown in their sandboxes.
Both of the locations that you have provided here measure average precipitation days(>= 1mm), but in reality, the precipitation can be measured for example down to 0.1 mm, therefore these cities certainly have more precipitation days than what is being shown in their sandboxes.
Precipitation days below 1mm are recorded as such. They usually aren't jumbled in with >1mm Days unless made in error
Precipitation days below 1mm are recorded as such. They usually aren't jumbled in with >1mm Days unless made in error
Yeah, my point was that they didn't include days with precipitation less than 1 mm, which of course occurs, thererfore they certainly have more precipitation days than what is being shown.
Was looking at the climates of Mediterranean cities and noticed some weird trends.
For example, some cities have high precipitation totals but a relatively lower amount of rainy days, and vice versa.
Bizerte, Tunisia: 627.9 mm of precipitation on 77.6 days. 0.124 days/mm
Nice, France: 791.3 mm of precipitation on 62.1 days. 0.078 days/mm
Why is this and what could lead some areas to punch above their weight in this regard?
Also, the station for Bizerte, TN is located about 13 km inland from the sea at the Sidi-Ahmed Airport. If it were located on the eastern or northern coast, I believe this rainfall average would be much higher.
If it’s all a Mediterranean climate with the same influence of the sea, shouldn’t the rainfall totals correlate more closely with the number of rainy days?
Nice and Bizerte are quite a distance apart. Therefore it should not be surprising there is some variation due to geography. Also Nice gets a significantly low number of rainy days for the overall amount of rainfall. In fact the South of France as a whole gets very little rainy days. The only explanation it seems is that it is sheltered from those westerly fronts which bring quite a bit of rain to more western areas of Southern France evident by the significant difference in the amount of total rainfall between western and and eastern southern France. The West obviously catches most it.
Also it should be noted the South of France is really only In the Csa largely because of those summer low temperatures which keeps it's mean temperature high. This is obviously due to the Mediterranean sea being so warm in summer which keeps temperatures in summer high even at night. It is barely in the subtropical zone however and so is heavily affected the rest of year by westerlies which as we can see hit the west coast hard and by the time it hits Eastern France dissipates. For example look at Bayonne in South Western France. It gets over twice the number of rainfall and rainy days.
Without that sheltered very warm Mediterranean sea in summer then places like Nice wouldn't be in the Subtropical Zone at all evident by the data of the rest of the year outside of summer as in winter the Mediterranean sea cools down quite a bit. Being a smaller body of water there is more temperature variation throughout the year. Therefore Nice should actually get significantly more rainfall and rainy days than Bizerte due to it being more affected by westerlies outside summer however as I stated the western landmass of France shelters it
Nice and Bizerte are quite a distance apart. Therefore it should not be surprising there is some variation due to geography. Also Nice gets a significantly low number of rainy days for the overall amount of rainfall. In fact the South of France as a whole gets very little rainy days. The only explanation it seems is that it is sheltered from those westerly fronts which bring quite a bit of rain to more western areas of Southern France evident by the significant difference in the amount of total rainfall between western and and eastern southern France. The West obviously catches most it.
Also it should be noted the South of France is really only In the Csa largely because of those summer low temperatures which keeps it's mean temperature high. This is obviously due to the Mediterranean sea being so warm in summer which keeps temperatures in summer high even at night. It is barely in the subtropical zone however and so is heavily affected the rest of year by westerlies which as we can see hit the west coast hard and by the time it hits Eastern France dissipates. For example look at Bayonne in South Western France. It gets over twice the number of rainfall and rainy days.
Without that sheltered very warm Mediterranean sea in summer then places like Nice wouldn't be in the Subtropical Zone at all evident by the data of the rest of the year outside of summer as in winter the Mediterranean sea cools down quite a bit. Being a smaller body of water there is more temperature variation throughout the year. Therefore Nice should actually get significantly more rainfall and rainy days than Bizerte due to it being more affected by westerlies outside summer however as I stated the western landmass of France shelters it
Thank you for your answer. Even when comparing places like Rome or other Mediterranean coastal cities (Spain, Italy, Morocco, Algeria, Greece, France, the Levant, Turkey), most have a lower days/mm than Bizerte does (for cities 500 or 600 mm and above). Even in the same coutry of Tunisia, the highest rainfall coastal city is Tabarka, but it only has 0.082 days/mm.
I think it may be more of how Bizerte is a special case in getting more rainy days for the total amount than the other way around. If this is the case, what makes it unique in this regard?
Barcelona also punches way above its weight in this regard, even more so than Bizerte.
I tried to find places that also measure >1mm and not 0.1mm to have a fair comparison. Turkey and Greece wiki pages both use the 0.1mm threshold, so it is hard to get a fair comparison for those countries.
Precipitation in the NW Mediterranean is associated with cut-off lows that hit the area in autumn, when the Mediterranean Sea is very warm and there is a lot of moist, so it falls in form of downpours/strong thunderstorms.
Precipitation in the SW Mediterranean occurs mostly in winter, when fronts have most penetration to the south and carry the moist they caught in their path through the sea. Then, winter showers and stratiform rain are comparatively more important.
(In case of Barcelona, the Can Bruixa station is useless; focus on El Prat AP for days of rain)
Precipitation in the NW Mediterranean is associated with cut-off lows that hit the area in autumn, when the Mediterranean Sea is very warm and there is a lot of moist, so it falls in form of downpours/strong thunderstorms.
Precipitation in the SW Mediterranean occurs mostly in winter, when fronts have most penetration to the south and carry the moist they caught in their path through the sea. Then, winter showers and stratiform rain are comparatively more important.
(In case of Barcelona, the Can Bruixa station is useless; focus on El Prat AP for days of rain)
So since the autumn precipitation is heavier and more isolated, the NW Med has higher total rainfall but lower rainfall days?
For the SW Med this would mean Morocco and Algeria should follow the same trend as Bizerte, but they also seem to have a lower amount days/mm of rain, similar to the NW Med.
What about for the central Med and Eastern Med? They seem to have the same winter peaks but on a lower amount of days as well (excluding extreme north of Tunisia)
I'm not too familiar with these locations but for some of them perhaps mountains play a role
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