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Eastbourne 'Top Town For Sunshine'


Coast

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

OK folks, it's been pretty grey and gloomy this Winter, but I'm pleased to post the following article regarding Philip Eden, which yet again confirms Eastbourne's place at the top of the sunshine league for the UK (yes it''s a blatant plug!!! :rofl: ):

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A seaside town has topped the sunshine league - confirming its status as the sunniest place in the UK, according to a leading weather expert. Meteorologist Philip Eden said Eastbourne had the highest number of sunshine hours in the UK last year.

The resort recorded 1,962 hours of sunshine in 2011, significantly ahead of rival destinations Jersey and Guernsey, Mr Eden said. He added that Eastbourne recorded an average of five hours and 23 minutes of sunshine a day, with 273.9 hours of sunshine in April 2011 - almost 100 hours more than the long-term average. Mr Eden, who manages weather-uk.com and climate-uk.com, said the average temperature recorded in Eastbourne last year was 12.3C, compared to 10C, which is believed to be the highest annual average on record.

Eastbourne Borough councillor Neil Stanley, cabinet member for tourism and leisure, said: "We are absolutely delighted to hear that we are yet again the sunniest place in the UK, with our microclimate bringing us more hours of sunshine than anywhere else in the country."

http://www.google.co...51326713563182A

Top 10 sun spots by hours of sunshine in 2011.

• Eastbourne - 1,962

• Jersey airport - 1,913

• Weymouth - 1,890

• Guernsey airport - 1,857

• Manston, Kent - 1,824

• East Malling, Kent - 1,765

• Southampton - 1,755

• Herstmonceux, East Sussex - 1,703

• Norwich - 1,667

• Whipsnade, Bedfordshire - 1,665

How do you feel your town or city has done in comparison, over 2011?

http://www.eastbourn...advice/records/

article-2087332-00523B3B00000258-562_952x620.jpg

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

My my the UK is cloudier then I thought!

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

Interesting to see Norwich in the top 10- I think this must have been the result of anomalous synoptics (certainly May and October had East Anglia as the sunniest region of the country, due to a high incidence of NW-SE split setups). Taking long-term averages Norwich is about level with the fringes of Greater London sunshine-wise, so it's certainly one of the sunnier areas of the country but not normally within the top 10.

Eastbourne has been a UK leader for sunshine for as long as records in the area began- it always seems to be there or thereabouts in the sunshine league tables.

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Actually Bognor Regis lays a creditable claim to be the sunniest location. Despite a poor showing last year of 1855 hours (official site published it at 1865 hrs) previous years data shows that it beats Eastbourne more often than not


Eastbourne Bognor
2010 1911.5 1917.4
2009 1979.7 1895.7
2008 1822.9 1956.3
2007 1932.1 2033.1
2006 1922.5 2039.6

Cue Coast and Eastbourne councillors quoting King George V...

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Cue Coast and Eastbourne councillors quoting King George V...

Bu....... :whistling:

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

It doesn't matter if you're the sunniest place in Britain when the temperature is always cool and there is an ever present sea breeze! ;)

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Posted
  • Location: Heswall, Wirral
  • Weather Preferences: Summer: warm, humid, thundery. Winter: mild, stormy, some snow.
  • Location: Heswall, Wirral

Not sure about here, probably fairly average, maybe around 1,600 hours or so. We cannot get more the 1800 hours here, it is not possible so we have to put up with what we get.

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

Not sure about here, probably fairly average, maybe around 1,600 hours or so. We cannot get more the 1800 hours here, it is not possible so we have to put up with what we get.

I'm sure it IS possible, just incredibly unlikely on a damp Atlantic island.

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Posted
  • Location: The North Kent countryside
  • Weather Preferences: Hot summers, snowy winters and thunderstorms!
  • Location: The North Kent countryside

It's normally pretty hot where I live in the summer, so I'm happy.

Last time I went to Eastbourne I never heard so much public farting in my life. Old people either not realising they were doing it or not caring. That is totally serious!

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

I remember reading that Jersey is the sunniest place in the UK on average, despite having been pipped by Eastbourne in 2011 (although to be fair the website claims that Eastbourne is the sunniest place in mainland Britain, which excludes Jersey).

Interitus is right to suggest that there are strong competitors to Eastbourne, and Bognor Regis is certainly one of them. One complicating factor is the conversion from Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorders to Kipp-Zonen sensors (the latter usually record lower sunshine totals, especially in summer). Hastings was always a strong competitor to Eastbourne but then Hastings weather stations converted to the K-Z sensors which dropped it from the list. In "like-for-like" terms though Hastings is still one of the sunniest places in Britain.

And yes, most of the UK's sunniest spots on average are coastal and thus get a lot of sea breezes. There are of course exceptions in individual years- again Norwich springs to mind, having been in 2011's top 10 and being a common hotspot in southerly and south-westerly regimes, though of course its 1667 hours paled by comparison with Eastbourne's 1962 hours.

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Posted
  • Location: Milton Keynes MK
  • Weather Preferences: anything extreme or intense !
  • Location: Milton Keynes MK

I can't possibly compete with you on that one Coast but we do have over 22 million trees here so that must count for something....and there are one or two other good things about MK .....

http://www.knowhere.co.uk/Milton-Keynes/Buckinghamshire/South-East-England/info/bestthings

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Last time I went to Eastbourne I never heard so much public farting in my life. Old people either not realising they were doing it or not caring. That is totally serious!

It's the kebab shops fault, but I think I've got it under control now f020.gif

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Posted
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District. 290 mts a.s.l.
  • Weather Preferences: Anything extreme
  • Location: Derbyshire Peak District. 290 mts a.s.l.

1207.0 hrs of sunshine here in 2011 and it's very unlikely we'll ever be competing with Eastbourne.

The sunniest year in the last 35 years was 1989 with 1693.3 hrs.

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

It's a similar story with the Tyne and Wear/Durham area, with the sunniest year at Sunderland (according to a Weather article by Dennis Wheeler back in 2002) being 1989 with 1730+ hours, and Durham also had 1989 just edge out 1995 with around 1650 hours. However, I have a feeling that 2003 might have beaten 1989 had the Durham site not moved to using one of the modern Kipp-Zonen sensors.

The Tyne and Wear/Durham area's sunshine deficit arises entirely due to the summer half-year- when browsing the sunshine leaderboards in the Climatological Observers' Link it was notable how often Sunderland topped the list during "westerly" months in the winter half-year, with totals that also exceeded those at all of the UK stations in Weather Log. In the summer, a combination of the "convective cloud spreading into stratocumulus and staying extensive as it heads over to the east coast" plus low cloud off the North Sea ensure that the North East is one of England's cloudier regions, though less cloudy than the Pennines and most of Cumbria.

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2011 Sunshine Stats

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2011/17/2011_17_Sunshine_Actual.gif

2010 Sunshine Stats

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/anomacts/2010/17/2010_17_Sunshine_Actual.gif

2010 was a far sunnier year locally than 2011. The start of 2011 was pretty sunny, but the return of the westerly winds towards late Autumn/ December 2011, really effected sunshine totals.

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Posted
  • Location: Otford/Sevenoaks, NW Kent (Approx. 100m asl); Hometown - Auckland, New Zealand
  • Location: Otford/Sevenoaks, NW Kent (Approx. 100m asl); Hometown - Auckland, New Zealand

But the Languedoc area in France has some 2,500 hours of sunshine a year :good:

I'm not really sure how it's particularly relevant to this thread but continuing that theme; Nelson (or Blenheim), at the top of the South Island in New Zealand records similar, often over 2,500 hours a year. Locations along the East Coast of the North Island can also occassionally take the top spot with over 2,500 hours and in 2008 Whakatane recorded a highly contentious 2,700 (although many believe this is due to faulty equipment). Even Auckland averages 2,100 hours a year, which is rather surprising given that the locals regularly complain about how cloudy it is...

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

But the Languedoc area in France has some 2,500 hours of sunshine a year :good:

And the Yuma area of Arizona has some 4,000 hours of sunshine a year :good:

Edited by Aaron
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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

The relatively high sunshine totals in most of New Zealand, in what is, on the face of it, a similarly mild moist maritime type of climate to Britain's, has always fascinated me. It's not just about the topography- even the very wet western coastal areas of New Zealand tend not to average far short of 2000 hours per year. I guess that the most likely reasons are the relatively high amount of time spent under "clear" anticyclones and bright showery polar maritime airmasses (as the prevailing wind direction is a direct westerly rather than a north-westerly, suggesting rather less tropical maritime air- though I'm told that Tm air can be very warm and sticky in many parts of New Zealand when it does happen).

As far as the UK is concerned, sunshine differences in 2010 and 2011 reflect the prevailing synoptic patterns. 2010 had a high incidence of northerly types, resulting in most western and northern areas gaining at the expense of the southeast. In 2011 the prevailing pattern was south-westerlies with dry sunny weather in the SE and dull wet weather in the NW, and therefore south-eastern areas gained at the expense of the western third of Britain. Those differences are more starkly highlighted when you look at the rainfall.

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Posted
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl
  • Weather Preferences: Anything but mild south-westeries in winter
  • Location: Whitkirk, Leeds 86m asl

New Zealand is more the equivalent in terms of latitude, to Spain and southern France then it is to Britain - so daylight hours are considerably longer in winter then here - which is why it only just averages over 2000 hours - if you put Auckland further south I can assure you it would be much much cloudier not to mention a hell of a lot colder

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Posted
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)
  • Location: Eastbourne, East Sussex (work in Mid Sussex)

Well our namesake down there doesn't seem to be faring any better today, moderately warmer maybe but no more sunshine!

post-6667-0-49171300-1326893984_thumb.jp

They do seem to have a few more sunshine hours than us on average (see Wellington)

http://www.emigratenz.org/NewZealandSunshine.html

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Posted
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire
  • Weather Preferences: Sunshine, convective precipitation, snow, thunderstorms, "episodic" months.
  • Location: Lincoln, Lincolnshire

New Zealand is more the equivalent in terms of latitude, to Spain and southern France then it is to Britain - so daylight hours are considerably longer in winter then here - which is why it only just averages over 2000 hours - if you put Auckland further south I can assure you it would be much much cloudier not to mention a hell of a lot colder

This argument doesn't work- the reduced daylight hours in winter at high latitudes are offset by increased daylight hours in summer.

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