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Midway airport not only continues to use the Foster at 87 watts for purposes of continuity, they also record sunshine with the newest equipment manufactured by Kipp and Zonen
Will this data ever be available to the public? I don't think any other NOAA office or city is doing this. Just seems so haphazard the way NOAA approaches sunshine hours data.
I also came upon this form NOAA, but can't figure out where it is for, or if it ever happened or is happening currently.
The value to be added to convert CS to US (corrected) is greatest in summer and least in winter. The annual conversion value is a percentage of sunshine duration increasing from 11 per cent in the northern United States to 14 per cent in the south.
That adjustment factor seems to be in line with the the typical "increase" noted here on conversion from C-S to Kipp-Zonen values.
There are many (relatively) reliable solar radiation maps of the world (for example at the meteonorm or Solargis websites). These maps are made of a combination of ground measurement data and satellite data. Far better than comparing all these unreliable "sunshine hour" data between countries.
Besides that: what does a sunshine hour mean? An hour of hazy sunshine just above 120 w/m counts the same as a full hour of very bright sunshine. Given the fact that the max. amount of solar radiation is about 1000 w/m, that is a big difference with the 120 w/m treshold.
Since Buffalo gets more lake effect gunk than Niagara Falls, it's probably less. Not much less, since I suspect that Niagara Falls gets lake effect cloud while Buffalo gets rain/snow; the precipitation difference is larger than the sunshine difference. What's your experience?
So, most of upstate NY near the Great Lakes probably gets around 1950-2000 sunshine hours. Pittsburgh may be lower than 1900.
The lake effect phenomenon can be very localized, heavy snow in southern Buf with mostly cloudy skies in the north is common. This sunshine map shows around 2400 hours for my area, minus 400 and you get the environment Canada figure (here is a snowbelt map as well). Cleveland, Syracuse, and Buffalo likely receive around 1800-2000 hours.
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So where'd the 2200 for Windsor come from? Your link looks more believable since it's from an official source.
I have no clue. Classic wikipedia
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Do you have a monthly breakdown for Ontario cities? Do you think London, ON is similar to western NY State cities?
I can't find any monthly sunshine breakdowns for Windsor and Niagara (the hours are probably from an older station). Here is London's
Last edited by Humid Subtropical; 07-03-2013 at 03:17 PM..
There are many (relatively) reliable solar radiation maps of the world (for example at the meteonorm or Solargis websites). These maps are made of a combination of ground measurement data and satellite data. Far better than comparing all these unreliable "sunshine hour" data between countries.
Besides that: what does a sunshine hour mean? An hour of hazy sunshine just above 120 w/m counts the same as a full hour of very bright sunshine. Given the fact that the max. amount of solar radiation is about 1000 w/m, that is a big difference with the 120 w/m treshold.
It's a bit subjective. Should filtered sunshine through haze or clouds count? To me, I often think it's nearly as good as sunshine from a unobstructed. Others might think differently.
The lake effect phenomenon can be very localized, heavy snow in southern Buf with mostly cloudy skies in the north is common. This sunshine map shows around 2400 hours for my area, minus 400 and you get the environment Canada figure. Here is a snowbelt map as well. Cleveland, Syracuse, and Buffalo likely receive around 1800-2000 hours.
Yes, I remember when I used to lived in upstate NY, the cities closest to the lake might get a snowstorm while we'd only get light flurries or just clouds. Below 2000 hours is less than I expected until I came to this thread. Still, the US numbers I assume are good for comparing between American location.
Will this data ever be available to the public? I don't think any other NOAA office or city is doing this. Just seems so haphazard the way NOAA approaches sunshine hours data.
I don't know if it will be "available" to the public, but in in the process of getting all of Frank Wachowski's sunshine records for Midway. NOAA basically abandoned sunshine data in 1996 when it switched over equipment.
NOAA now prefers to measure solar irradiance rather than sunshibe hours
Luckily Chicago has one of the most detailed sunshine records in the country. I asked how long Blue Hill was recording because I heard of a site on the eadt coast with just as long of a record data set. I just didnt know where exactly.
Only issue with Chicago is that Midway has continuous sunshine since 1928 everything before that was monitored at either the UofC or at one othe downtown weather stations.
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Chicago is fortunate to possess one of the nation's most complete sunshine databases with records dating back to 1893
I don't know if it will be "available" to the public, but in in the process of getting all of Frank Wachowski's sunshine records for Midway. NOAA basically abandoned sunshine data in 1996 when it switched over equipment.
NOAA now prefers to measure solar irradiance rather than sunshibe hours
Luckily Chicago has one of the most detailed sunshine records in the country. I asked how long Blue Hill was recording because I heard of a site on the eadt coast with just as long of a record data set. I just didnt know where exactly.
Only issue with Chicago is that Midway has continuous sunshine since 1928 everything before that was monitored at either the UofC or at one othe downtown weather stations.
I've read that too, but know nothing more about it.
Interesting thing about the solar irradiance is that Boston using CS at Blue Hill gets 2250 hours of sunshine. Sofia, Bulgaria averages around 2173 hours (I assume CS method). Yet Sofia gets more solar irradiance per year, 3.99 vs 3.58. Higher irradiance could be due to getting more sunshine hours in summer vs winter. Sofia might be sunnier than Boston in summer, and a lot cloudier in winter.
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