March/April '07

arctictree

Have to say, weather in March/April this year has been great.

Cold and snowy (at least for me) mid March to end March and then a quick switch to warm dry weather with a little rain at the end to get things growing.

Forecast for the end of this month looks good too. Hoping to take the next few months off work to enjoy the great outdoors!!

A

Snowbie

Yep agree,weather has been fantastic and in some cases unseasonally warm.In fact April has been unseasonal on the plus side.A lot of sun,a bit of heat and a small drop of rain,the plants have bloomed about a good four weeks ahead of normal also i had to hose the garden in the end which is very uncommon to do in April.
Let it continue with the odd thundery breakdown thrown in.

Mothman

Also April is being a notably sunny month, and I think very likely to be sunniest on record in places.
Last year I had 190hours. Kilkenny and Shannon had their sunniest April on record both recording about 200hrs.

This year I'm up to 222hrs, add to that today (6hrs so far) and tomorrow.

The sunniests Aprils I could find from past 50 years are 236hrs at Belmullet in 1974, 233hr at Malin Head in 1962 and 232hrs Rosslare 2003.

Sunniest on record at Dublin and Casement are 205hrs and 198hrs respectively both in 1974.

Mothman

I should add that it'll be warmest April on record at most stations, some by a margin of more than 1C.

And I think some stations may have their dryest April on record.

Mothman

11.8hrs sunshine today bringing total for month to 234hrs.

Into 4th year recording and this month ranks 3rd behind June (242hrs) and July (247hrs) last year 2006. So could rank 2nd after tomorrow.

Only one other month has exceeded 200hrs, May 2004 (217hrs)

Snowbie

Only equipped UV and solar to the AWS in december and total in sun year to date is 431hrs of which 258hrs is in april so far.Nothing to compare it to last year but memory tells me this is pretty high for April.10hrs today alone.

Mothman

Snowbie wrote:

total in sun year to date is 431hrs of which 258hrs is in april so far.

Snowbie, is that a Weather Display output? 431hr seems much too low.

Meanwhile, Campbell Stokes scorched 12.2hrs today giving a months total of 246hrs, just 2 hours short of July 06 and we're still 2 months from longest day.
For comparison, the previous 3 Aprils have seen 163, 130 and 190 hours sunshine.

Snowbie

Yes MM,just remebered i had my % value set too high to record sunny day for most of January as i was in the calibration end of it.So yes 431hrs is probably inaccurate ytd but by how much i dont know.I've lost most of the data for january due to this.

Whats your ytd sunshine?
and can you tell me Dublin airport sun for all of January and ill try get an avg for here.
As my sun is near your total for this month and except for weather conditions due to our distance(cloudy)seems to be working fine now i hope.12.0hrs bang on for today so doesnt look to disimilar to your data.
270hrs for here for the month,is the airport close to this total?If not back to the recalibration again but i think i have tweaked it.

Cheers for reminding me btw i forgot about this.Tryin to set perfect so next year be more accurate than this year.:)

Mothman

270hrs is too high.
Dublin AP up to and inc yesterday 226hrs. So assume 12 for today gives total of 238hrs.

Others up to and inc 29th
Casement 218h
Rosslare 238h
Kilkenny 230h.

All these are easily highest on record for April.

As for Dublin AP Jan figure, no I'm missing that but I'd work with 70h for now.
Feb was 84h
Mar 134h

My YDT is 550h
J 75h
F 87h
M 142
A 246

Can you set a calibration for each month or at least each season? I'm thinking that the one calibration may not suit both Winter and Summer.

Snowbie

Yeah i think i know what the problem is,its only manual calibration even though i have my lat/long in the WD software.You really have to guess to set what % related to solar and of what time of year.That will not be accurate to do.

For example i had >30% at first in January detecting a sunny sky and at that time of year you wouldnt get close to that,is why i recorded very little sun for that month.So lowered that and sun hours began to creep up.

Now i have reset it back to 30% and basically as the strenght of twilight both morning and night it is greater than this meaning before and after sun rise/set its still recording sunshine(this is where the campbell is best to use for accuracy)so i have to guess what % to put my sunshine to begin recording >50%? maybe.
Sounds like a bug in the software as i shouldnt have to guess the % when my lat/long is already inputted.Will cc a copy of this to Brian in WD and see what he makes of it.

Looks high the total hours of sun for the month tbh but it been exceptional everywhere,just needed something to go on.
Cheers for the stats:)

Snowbie

Can you set a calibration for each month or at least each season?

Brian from WD got back to me and said my threshold setting was the problem as i thought,the default setting at 80% for sunny for all seasons and 65% for mostly sunny/partly cloudy are the setting i should use.With 30% for sunny,i was actually recording more sunshine than there actually was.
But with the 30% originally selected for sun (this is under the default threshold for cloudy) i was recording sunshine.This is why my records was that high.

I have matched dublin AP for sun now ytd(what sun they get i should get as im close to the AP) and see at the end of the may if its close or same readings.

Snowbie

Just to let you know MM,30th of april 12.7hrs of sun at dublin ap,i got 12hrs.This is before any calibration.Close enough but max sun for month was too high.Im tryin to figure out how it was so far out.Good time to calibrate this while the weather is clear and fine.Be keeping a close eye on this with airports readings and comparing it each day.Let you know how it goes.