[Dave K]

Well I hope that Icebox Europe will be finished by May, and to replace the void in my life ( ) I am considering a new sunshine project alongside the UK only one to make a league table of sunshine for a few specific European ( well Mediterranean principally) locations, making the choice from the best records over a recent 30 year period. This would just be to take the sunshine hours reported each day from May to September to keep a cumulative running total.

As usual to keep it easy to manage the data has to be derived from the daily reports given by Ogimet. The first issue is that not every met station reports sunshine ( very unfortunately not Faro which would be a top contender for sure). I will limit it to France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain unless there are any viable "wildcard" locations elsewhere, either 1 or 2 from each nation so that it isn't too much work.

I can make a guess at some stations to include but would prefer to have ideas from those with more knowledge, so please take a look at the Ogimet pages below and offer your best advice for what is available. If there is a reliable location for official readings at Faro I would be glad to know of it too. We have plenty of time to finesse the details


FRANCE: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
I am thinking Marseille and/or somewhere in Corsica?

GREECE: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
No idea really - Rhodes for one?

ITALY: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
Southern coast of Sardinia and / or Sicily (Gela or Trapani maybe?)

PORTUGAL:http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&state=PORT&osum=no&fmt=html&ord=REV&ano=2012&mes=02&day=23&hora=00&ndays=1&Send=send
In the absence of Faro, no idea

SPAIN: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
Huelva and Almeria seem good bets?

[Ian Williams]

Big Dave, on 23 February 2012 - 16:05, said:

Well I hope that Icebox Europe will be finished by May, and to replace the void in my life ( ) I am considering a new sunshine project alongside the UK only one to make a league table of sunshine for a few specific European ( well Mediterranean principally) locations, making the choice from the best records over a recent 30 year period. This would just be to take the sunshine hours reported each day from May to September to keep a cumulative running total.

As usual to keep it easy to manage the data has to be derived from the daily reports given by Ogimet. The first issue is that not every met station reports sunshine ( very unfortunately not Faro which would be a top contender for sure). I will limit it to France, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain unless there are any viable "wildcard" locations elsewhere, either 1 or 2 from each nation so that it isn't too much work.

I can make a guess at some stations to include but would prefer to have ideas from those with more knowledge, so please take a look at the Ogimet pages below and offer your best advice for what is available. If there is a reliable location for official readings at Faro I would be glad to know of it too. We have plenty of time to finesse the details


FRANCE: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
I am thinking Marseille and/or somewhere in Corsica?

GREECE: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
No idea really - Rhodes for one?

ITALY: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
Southern coast of Sardinia and / or Sicily (Gela or Trapani maybe?)

PORTUGAL:http://www.ogimet.com/cgi-bin/gsynres?lang=en&state=PORT&osum=no&fmt=html&ord=REV&ano=2012&mes=02&day=23&hora=00&ndays=1&Send=send
In the absence of Faro, no idea

SPAIN: http://www.ogimet.co...ays=1&Send=send
Huelva and Almeria seem good bets?

France /Marseille and Toulon
Greece/ Rhodes and Heraklion

Portugal/Faro and possibly Sines? http://www.ogimet.co...&min=0&ndays=30

[Dave K]

Thanks Ian, well it seems that Faro Airport sometimes reports sun hours and sometimes not - at 06z today it reported 18.3 hours of sun in 24 hours and 15.1 the other day - no wonder Faro has such high annual readings if it records even when the sun is below the horizon LOL.

http://www.ogimet.co...&day=23&hora=15

I guess it is an accumulation over 2 or 3 days which doesn't always get reset for each individual day - which will make life a pain for the project so hopefully it's a temporary thing.

[stormy]

Big Dave, on 23 February 2012 - 18:08, said:

Thanks Ian, well it seems that Faro Airport sometimes reports sun hours and sometimes not - at 06z today it reported 18.3 hours of sun in 24 hours and 15.1 the other day - no wonder Faro has such high annual readings if it records even when the sun is below the horizon LOL.

http://www.ogimet.co...&day=23&hora=15

I guess it is an accumulation over 2 or 3 days which doesn't always get reset for each individual day - which will make life a pain for the project so hopefully it's a temporary thing.

SE and S Portugal have around 3000h of sun a year...Faro, Sines, Sagres, Beja, Evora and even Lisbon have very high sunny days per year..
If i were you I´d choose Sines and Faro, or Beja and Sines

[Dave K]

stormy, on 23 February 2012 - 18:54, said:

SE and S Portugal have around 3000h of sun a year...Faro, Sines, Sagres, Beja, Evora and even Lisbon have very high sunny days per year..
If i were you I´d choose Sines and Faro, or Beja and Sines

Thanks

[DG57]

Ian Williams, on 23 February 2012 - 17:41, said:

France /Marseille and Toulon
Greece/ Rhodes and Heraklion

Portugal/Faro and possibly Sines? http://www.ogimet.co...&min=0&ndays=30

Indeed, Marseille and Toulon are the sunniest stations of France.

With 2,800 to 2,900 hours per year.

http://www.meteopass...ment-annuel.php

There might be some others between Marseille and Toulon, but they probably don't record this sunshine parameter. Anyway, the choice of Marseille and Toulon is safe because they are important stations, so breaks are unlikely to happen so often.

So, allons-y!

This post has been edited by MorganeLanesle: 23 February 2012 - 20:00

[Dave K]

OK, thanks Morgane.

From an old thread here I found for Greece that Ierapetra, Crete is the sunniest location in Greece but it doesn't report through Ogimet. So we may have to go for Heraklion and Rhodes for what is available?

[Ian Williams]

Big Dave, on 23 February 2012 - 20:44, said:

OK, thanks Morgane.

From an old thread here I found for Greece that Ierapetra, Crete is the sunniest location in Greece but it doesn't report through Ogimet. So we may have to go for Heraklion and Rhodes for what is available?

I think with whats available from Greece then yes, there is also Kerkyra (Corfu) but am not sure whether there is sunnier or not i`m not sure

[Ian Williams]

Maybe worth a re-visit http://www.ukweather...lace-in-europe/

[Ian Williams]

http://www.urbanclim...2005_cyprus.pdf

uploads/monthly_02_2012/post-30656-0-00018100-1330031874_thumb.gif

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[BUTTERFLY]

I think Nice rather than Marseille should be included among the Frenchy sites. See the following post from http://www.ukweather...__1#entry783885

The book "The Weather of Britain" by Robin Stirling (Faber & Faber 1982) states (in Table 41) on page 242 that during the period 1931-1960, the temperature at Nice varied from +35.8 deg. C. to -4.6 deg. C. (during this time, Britain would have recorded a higher temperature only in 1932, when 36.1 deg. c. was reported on 19th August at several places around London, etc, otherwise the highest was 35.6 deg. C. on 29th June 1957 at Camden Square, London - see http://www.personal....ottest_days.htm). The average rainfall during this period was 862 mm, only 86 days having 0.1 mm or more, and the average sunshine was 2775 hours, averaging 7.6 hours/day (62% of possible). This is the highest annual total shown for 11 sites in France in the table, with Marseille being the next sunniest at 2654 hours (59% of possible), followed by Perpignan with 2560 hours (595 of possible); Cherbourg has the lowest value at 1608 hours (36% of possible).

I am not saying that Nice would have the highest amount of sunshine in Europe as it seems some places have 3,000 hours or so, but it is possibly the sunniest place in France.

Although not technically in Europe, and it would complicate matters, it would be intesting to know sunshine values for places along the coast of North Africa. The sunniest area of the world is in the Sahara Desert, with I think over 4,000 hours, around 90% or more of the possible total of around 4,400 hours.

[Dave K]

Ian (Butterfly) - more up to date climate stats such as 1961 - 1990 show Marseille and Toulon have considerably more sunshine per annum than Nice:

Toulon: 2 899 hours
Marseilles: 2 835 hours
Nice: 2 668 hours

[Dave K]

Some sample annual totals of sunshine from Italy but info is really hard to track down here...

Palermo: 2 530
Brindisi: 2 603
Trapani: 2 637
Cagliari: 2 719

So at the moment it looks like perhaps the best bet is one on Sicily and one on Sardinia?

[DG57]

Big Dave is right: inland southern Provence and coastal Provence have a more arid and sunny Mediterranean climate, while the coast of the Riviera (from Nice to Menton) is more humid and thunderstormy in the summer (a very little bit like northern Florida); thus, the climate there, can almost be named as "humid subtropical Mediterranean". Consequently, the cloud cover is a bit more important.

Arid and sunnier part of the South-East:



Humid and less sunny part of the South-East:

This post has been edited by MorganeLanesle: 24 February 2012 - 16:56

[Mesogeiakos]

For Greece according to Mantzarakis (forgot the year of publication) the highest annual sunshine is found in Ierapetra with 3101 hours per year...Tympaki (again in south Crete) is second spot and then its Rhodes.

All are over 3000 hours per year.

This post has been edited by Mesogeiakos: 24 February 2012 - 18:04

[Ian Williams]

Mesogeiakos, on 24 February 2012 - 18:03, said:

For Greece according to Mantzarakis (forgot the year of publication) the highest annual sunshine is found in Ierapetra with 3101 hours per year...Tympaki (again in south Crete) is second spot and then its Rhodes.

All are over 3000 hours per year.

Yep, but unfortunately Dave needs to use Ogimet as there is no sunshine data for the above on a daily basis so the choices have to come from the stations on Ogimet that records sunshine, hence i think the option of Rhodes and Heraklion, unless you believe there are sunnier places in the Ogimet line-up?

http://www.ogimet.co...ra=12&Send=send

[Mesogeiakos]

No it wont be.It's Rhodes then.Stupid ogimet only a handful of Greek stations.Let me check if HNMS provides sunshine data somewhere.

Meanwhile here is the table for the Greek locations from your link above Matzarakis (2005).Look at the last column for the total of hours per year.Its for the period 1955-2000

This post has been edited by Mesogeiakos: 24 February 2012 - 18:14

[Dave K]

To be fair, the annual totals for Rhodes and Heraklion are pretty damn good! It would be a shame not to include Ierapetra but then I may have to exclude Faro because of oddities in reporting so it may not be the ideal (blue sky! ) scenario anyway.

[Mesogeiakos]

Btw Athens,Nea Filadelfeia is not that far off Heraklion.2806 for Athens 2838 for Heraklion.

It's a shame we cant have Faro and Ierapetra though.It would be between those two...

[Mesogeiakos]

Oh Samos is doing pretty good as well...Its around 2884 and its on ogimet I think.

Syros very well with 2895 but not on ogimet

This post has been edited by Mesogeiakos: 24 February 2012 - 18:35