Cities you thought were hotter/colder/wetter/etc than what they are (climate misconceptions) (warmest, nights)

[easthome]

Originally Posted by War Beagle

Given their reputations, I was amazed the rainfall in Seattle and London receive. Seattle receives less rain than most of the eastern third of the US, presumably because it rains little during the summer. Does Seattle get much heavy rain during the rainy season or is it mostly drizzle?

The real mind-blower was that London only receives about 25 inches of rain per year. The first time I saw that I was certain it was a mistake. Does the reputation come from a near constant drizzle?

The UK (including London) has a reputation for rain not because it rains a lot and the weather is bad but because it is unpredictable, where I live (West Sussex) is actually quite a sunny place (not in the winter months though) but you can't rely on the weather the way you could in say Malaga. In other words it is just as likely to rain in July as it is in January. For example this year October has been dryer and sunnier than August, so imagine if you booked a week away in August? because the weather wasn't great you would think 'the weather in the UK is bad'. But if you had booked a week in July (a warm sunny month this year) you would think 'why does the UK get a reputation for rain all the time?'. You get around 2000 hours of sunshine a year where I live but because the sun is so low in the sky in the winter months you don't get hardly any then, in other words 2000 hours across mainly only 9 months is actually quite sunny, therefore people (tourists) can be surprised by the amount of sunshine they see when they visit in June!

[Maxwell Senf]

This isn't a misconception I've had, but it's one many people in my family have. The only time we go to the Central Valley of California is in summer, so everyone is confused when I explain that January in Sacramento is only about 5 degrees warmer than January in Portland.

[Maxwell Senf]

On a similar note, it cracks me up how misinformed people are about their own climates. People tend to remember the extremes of their own climate and exaggerate trends. "When I lived in Bakersfield, it was 118 every day in summer."
I think you mean 100. Maybe it got that hot once, but that was certainly not every day.

[yankeefan93]

Aruba being a freaking tropical semi desert in the Caribbean where I thought it would be wetter.
Key West being drier than I thought during the summer.
The Panhandle of FL for being cold by FL standards in the winter whereas everyone in my family except me thought it would be warmer and brought swimsuits. And they nagged at me to bring swim trunks.... It actually dipped into the 30's when we went there in March 2015.

[Donar]

Before looking up climate data on Wikipedia I thought the Azores were bone dry and rather hot most of the year...because of the Azores High.

[tenkier7]

I thought the whole Italian peninsula would have prototype of dry summer subtropical climate and warmer winter averages similar to Spanish Mediterranean coast.
Only Genoa comes close to the stereotypical image temperature wise exceptionally in northern part of the country.

[EverBlack]

When I was, like, 10, and I looked at the map in my school book, I thought (note that the temperatures weren't what I thought in numbers, I'm just typing the feeling):

-Norway, Sweden and Finland are permanently frozen, even in the summer.
-Germany is very cool year-round (like 5 °C, even though I didn't think about temperature numbers at that age, it was the feeling).
-Everything south of Switzerland is very hot (like 40 °C year round)
-Northern Africa was around 50 °C in the summer and -1 °C in the winter.
-The entire USA (except those areas near Mexico) has around 20 °C year round, except New York, which has snow in the Christmas day, Canada, something like 10 °C in summer and freezing in the winter in the South and permanently frozen in the North. Mexico has 40 °C in the winter and 50 °C in the summer.
-I thought the entire South America was 30 °C and rain year-round, even the extreme South.
-Even the green part of Africa was 30 °C and rain year-round, same thing for Malaysia, Indonesia and those areas.
-China was confusing for me, I didn't think anything about that.
-Russia is like New York, 20 °C year round but snow in December and January.
-Australia is like Northern Africa, 50 °C in summer and -1 °C in winter.
-Antarctica is permanently frozen, but not as cold as Norway. I thought it was like -3 °C year round, while Norway, somewhere like -30 °C year round and you cannot live there.
-In Italy it's so hot that cars melt, so they use horses instead.

[Donar]

Originally Posted by EverBlack

-In Italy it's so hot that cars melt, so they use horses instead.

LOL, that's a funny misconception!

[Infamous92]

I used to think Singapore was more variable throughout the year, and sunnier.

[Noodleman556]

(about 8-9 years old) Thought Melbourne was extremely hot because i heard it on the Australian open that it was 42˚C. Oh how naive I was