I decided to use the historical weather in weather.com to compare the rain and temps in the Cotswolds to a few places that I have lived: Vancouver BC, Seattle WA, Santa Fe NM, and Rome Italy (have not lived there).

I was surprised at the results. Here is a summary.

Stroud: annual rain 25.90″, high temps from 43 - 69
Vancouver: annual rain 45.90″, high temps from 42 - 71
Seattle: annual rain 38.25″, high temps from 47 - 75
Rome: annual rain 33.00″, high temps from 53 - 88
Santa Fe: annual rain 14.22″, high temps from 43 - 86

Stroud in the Cotswolds gets almost half as much rain as Vancouver. I have the complete charts on Cotswolder - Weather Comparisons. The information for Santa Fe is correct. Do the rest of the comparisons seem right?

If so, I guess it doesn't rain all the time in England!

quote:

If so, I guess it doesn't rain all the time in England!

We just talk about it all the time, so it seems like it does!

The type of rain can have an effect too - I feel like it is always raining in the part of Devon where my mother lives, but it is a light, clinging rain that probably doesn't add up to much in a per hour measurement, but goes on and on and makes you very wet and everything seem damp - more so than a short, sharp downpour .

The Stroud temperatures look about right. The trouble about rainfall statistics is that unless you're an avid reader of such things, the figures don't really mean much. My inside/outside thermometer and the radio weather forecasts give me temperatures, but I certainly don't have a rain gauge, and the daily forecasts rarely mention any actual measurements.

For what it's worth, I found these statistics from a different site, which roughly agree with weather.com's temperatures, but show a markedly lower precipitation.

As your blog post implies, you do seem to have a knack for choosing exceptional weather periods for your visits here There hasn't been any significant rain here for the past fortnight, though there's some forecast for later in the week.

Jonathan

We have had great weather in England too - I was just noting the bad periods. May 2000 was a month of perfect weather, May 2005 again was perfect - which was why May 2006 with the second half of the month rain every day was upsetting. I thought I could count on May.

September 2004 was perfect for the first half, then changed.

This winter was perfect weather considering it is winter.

And right now, sitting in our tiny office with no A/C and a little fan blowing, and 90 degrees outside - I would trade summer in Santa Fe for summer in the Cotswolds!! (But by tonight it will be cool and I will be in love with Santa Fe weather again.)

Would you consider getting a rain gauge? We could make our own stats.

Those MSN stats for rain are lower by about half an inch. Weather.com had no rain numbers for Bath, and the ones for Cheltenham were the same as Stroud. I will check out a few more weather sites and report back. I like accuweather.com but I can't find a section showing averages.

Panda, you are right - when we were in England there were two things everyone talked about: the weather and the US Democratic primaries!

I remember once before noting that (surprisingly) it rains more in Vancouver than it does in England... but that in itself is a generalization. Certainly it rains more in Lynn Valley than it does here in Eagle Harbour!

This year I am quite sure we have you all beat - our weather has been dreadful and it is SO COLD that today - mid June - I am tempted to put the heat on!

I am really ready for some warm weather!

If you want to keep records I could easily get a rain gauge.

I thought a rain gauge would be expensive, but they are not. Here is one - Wireless rain gauge. Has anyone every used one before? I will get one and try it out. Our rain season should be starting in another month - we get torrential downpours. It might be a fun project to collect stats from various places.

Sheena, where do you think they take the official weather stats? Steve thinks it is at the airport, which is in a sunnier location. (Lets switch - I am panting on our 90 degree days now.)

quote:

mid June - I am tempted to put the heat on!

We have actually had the heat on two or three evenings this month, here in south-east England. However, the weather has actually been pretty nice on the whole. The strawberries certainly think so. They enjoyed plenty of rain a few weeks ago, mainly in short bursts (unlike the Devon drizzle Panda described), and now enough warmth to bring on a great crop.

The Cotswold averages look reasonable to me. Here, where it's a bit drier, 2 inches per month average rainfall is a good rule of thumb.

It's a good thing, Pauline, you didn't put some place like Des Moines or Cedar Rapids, Iowa, into this comparison right now.

Ann

My London school geography taught that BC / Vancouver Island had the most similar climate in North America to that of the British Isles.

The London rainfall graph had an average of 24 inches/year going from a low of 1.8" in January to a high of 2.2" in July.

In my 4 years in Mullum I have had 5 inches overnight and average rainfall is more like 70 inches. On the other hand it is much sunnier with only about 150 days a year having rain.

I remember London days of damp air and dark skies which would feel rainy, even if hardly anything registered in the rain gauge.

quote:

Originally posted by Pauline:
Sheena, where do you think they take the official weather stats? Steve thinks it is at the airport, which is in a sunnier location. (Lets switch - I am panting on our 90 degree days now.)

I think Steve is right.

Our girls did the rain gauge thing at school - goodness knows where the gauge is now - but I'll get one

quote:

Originally posted by JohnFromAus:
I remember London days of damp air and dark skies which would feel rainy, even if hardly anything registered in the rain gauge.

I think John has identified what the real situation is - raw, damp, overcast weather, though not necessarily much rain.

This is also typical of much of the northern half of the European continent in the winter. When I lived in Germany, there were many days with heavy fog; even the schools (at least, US Dependent Schools) closed for "fog" occasionally. However, there wasn't an unusual amount of rain.

This kind of weather apparently is why so many northern Europeans head for the Mediterranean or other sunny climes as soon as they can. So the moral is, I guess: just because some place isn't sunny doesn't mean that there's a lot of rain.

Ann

I wonder how the number of days with sunshine in the Cotswolds compares with other locations? Our tourist office says Santa Fe gets 300 days of sunshine (which leaves two months of rain and snow). We have many days in summer that are sunny and hot in the AM, then overcast and raining in the afternoon. Does that count as a sunny day?

(And the tourist office never mentions the ghastly dry winds we get in the spring.)

This spring/summer weather in Vancouver is certainly going to depress the stats as far as temperature goes. We had planned to take our boat out this morning but woke to grey skies, cold and a promise of rain. We have the wood fireplace on and I am weaving instead. Rain here doesn't generally hold us back but this unseasonable cold does. Yes, Sheena, the weather people take their measurements at the airport and there is considerable variation from one area to another. In spite of the unusual weather, the gardens are lovely - my roses are blooming beautifully and our styrax tree is humming with bees.
Cheers, MayK

Speaking for Seattle, usually there's very little rain in the summer. It's concentrated in the winter and it rains slowly, so it takes a lot of gray, drizzly days to pile up those inches.

To me, it seems more humid in England in the summer, uncomfortably so in London.

Vancouver and Seattle do benefit from being able to grow the same plants as in England.

The principle is that it rains constantly whenever Loie and I are in the UK. Other than that, the weather is pretty nice, says everyone to whom we speak.

"The 'Iao Valley (in Maui) receives around 400 inches of rain annually." Hah.

I think number of rainy days is a better guide to a climate than total rainfall amounts. As someone pointed out earlier, the rain in the UK is mostly light rain or drizzle so rainfall totals are not always large, however, the number of rainy days are high. The other factor in the UK climate is the low amounts of sunshine, and there are lots of dry but grey days which are just as depressing as rainy days.

I lived in San Francisco for a few years and was shocked at how heavy the rain was in winter.