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Sunshine

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 12:01
by Eamon Avis
In many guide books and also on this site mention is often made of the area having over 300 days of sunshine (don't mention the wind). What does this mean?

Does it mean on those 300 days:

1. The sun shines continously all day from sunrise to sunset?

2. The sun shines for more than 50% of the day?

3. The sun shines sometime during the day even if it's just for a few minutes?

Or is the phrase meaningless?

The answer to these questions will be of great importance to anybody thinking of coming here to get a tan.

http://www.anglophone-direct.com/Weathe ... Orientales

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 12:17
by thumbelina
I believe that this is the correct answer

The sun shines sometime during the day even if it's just for a few minutes

Have to add that the month of September is probably one of the very best months to visit, because the sea is generally at it's warmest, the weather is still gorgeous and the beaches and roads are much quieter.

September is, in fact, one of my favourite months in the PO (along with January, February, April, May, October and December! :D )

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 12:41
by Nigel and Karen
I have to agree Sept is my fav as well, having just returned to the UK Aug is a bit to busy for me!

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 12:58
by Kate
Mine too. It has everything you could possibly want. Warm days, cooler nights, empty beaches and roads.........

I had forgotten about that article which I wrote in 2005. Have updated it. Does anyone have anything to add to it?

Re: Sunshine

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 15:52
by Sav
Eamon Avis wrote:
Sav wrote: This might help ;)
http://www.ukweathershop.co.uk/acatalog ... _4102.html

Cheers Sav :)
That's interesting Sav, but it doesn't really explain when a day is counted as a day of sunshine.
Hi Eamon :)

My weather training course continues :lol:
Well they use cards to record sunlight

Quote: The record cards are made from a special board with a matt turquoise finish on which even weak sunlight produces a clearly visible trace. They are treated to char rather than burn so that the trace produced by strong sunlight does not spread significantly.

There are three types of card to correspond to the behaviour of the sun at different seasons: long curved for use in summer, straight for use near the equinoxes and short curved for use in winter.

All are marked with hourly intervals, and may be used in either the northern or the southern hemisphere.
http://www.ukweathershop.co.uk/acatalog ... _4102.html

So going by that, they total the amount of hours recorded on their cards & thus arrive at figure for a particular area.
The yearly sunshine total is then broken into days, from the final figure reached.
That's my basic understanding of it ;)

Cheers Sav :)

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 16:25
by thumbelina
I think this may be more what you're after, Eamonn.

How Many "Days of Sunshine"? It's a Cloudy Issue
Saturday, 28 March 2009 02:05 H. Bruce Miller


Does Bend, aka "the Paradise of the Cascades," really get 300 sunny days a year? Not according to the weather experts.

In KOHD's "You Ask, We Answer" feature, meteorologist Adam Clark answers a question from a viewer in Bend who wanted to know if the frequently heard 300-sunny-days claim is legit. Short answer: Nope - it's exaggerated by more than 60%.

"According to George Taylor, who wrote the book 'Climate of Oregon,' for a sunny day we need 15% or less of the sky to be covered by clouds over the 24-hour period," Clark explains. "A mostly sunny day is indicated by 15-30% cloud coverage [or less], and this type of coverage totals 51% of the days we see here in Central Oregon. After doing the math, the total number of days recorded as 'sunny' is 186. So there you have it."

The catch here is that the claim as typically stated is not that Bend has 300 sunny days per year; it's that Bend has 300 days of sunshine - a subtle but very important distinction.

According to The Wandering Eye's anonymous but highly reliable sources, a sophisticated scientific procedure was employed to establish that Bend enjoys "300 days of sunshine."

Back in the 1950s, a special high-tech sensory device (a pencil stuck vertically into the top of a cardboard box) was placed on the roof of the old Bend post office building for one year and constantly monitored by a small boy who recorded every time that the sun shone brightly enough to make the pencil cast a shadow for at least 10 consecutive seconds. Whenever that occurred at least once in any 24-hour period - voila! - a "day of sunshine."

So there you have it - the real story. Unless somebody has a better one.

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 19:42
by Eamon Avis
So to sum up then.

A sunny day is a day of sunshine, but a day of sunshine is not necessarily a sunny day.

Posted: Fri 13 Aug 2010 23:48
by mpprh
Poor people in 66, living in the virtual darkness of 300 days sunshine per year.

Lunel claims 330+ days every year. But the same question arises ?

Is Lunel's sunshine better than that in Perpignan ?



Peter