Your ideal climate?

[Mesoscale]

A true lover of extremes! Doesn't exist on Earth, though.

Minneapolis is close enough for me. This would just be a perfect set up even though like you say doesnt quite exist, I cant deal with monotonous weather all year llike some people want, with the averages of each not varying much.

[Yarmy]

I like Britain's climate. If we were guaranteed hot summers and freezing winters there'd be no fun in the chase. I must admit I'd quite like a New England autumn though.

[cheese]

Chasing cold spells is fun when they come to fruition, but not when they fail to deliver. I hate that.

Edited September 14, 2013 by cheese

[Yarmy]

Chasing cold spells is fun when they come to fruition, but not when they fail to deliver. I hate that.

Yes, but for there to be a thrill there has to be danger, no?

[cheese]

Yes, but for there to be a thrill there has to be danger, no?

I suppose, but I'd rather not put up with a milder winter just because chasing phantom cold spells is fun. I'd rather chase cold spells in Sweden, or should I say, even colder spells.

Edited September 14, 2013 by cheese

[Summer of 95]

Jan: -1/-6

Feb: -1/-6

Mar: 3/-3

Apr: 9/1

May: 16/6

Jun: 21/11

Jul: 23/12

Aug: 22/12

Sep: 17/9

Oct: 9/2

Nov: 5/0

Dec: 1/-4

 

This place, basically. Brownie points to anyone who can guess the location.

 

Riga? Gdansk? It isn't Prague which was my first thought, the river there isn't that wide and those look like shipyard cranes. Eastern Europe anyway, judging by those temperatures and the skyline. Not cold enough to be Russia though, unless it's Kaliningrad.

[Coopsy]

Jan: -1/-6

Feb: -1/-6

Mar: 3/-3

Apr: 9/1

May: 16/6

Jun: 21/11

Jul: 23/12

Aug: 22/12

Sep: 17/9

Oct: 9/2

Nov: 5/0

Dec: 1/-4

 

This place, basically. Brownie points to anyone who can guess the location.

 

The temp ranges looks like Oslo, Norway to me but not the pic

 

I think my part of the world has huge extremes and generally good weather variations - winters down to minus 40oC and dry air but often snow storms to plus 37oC in summer with low humidity and low precip

 

That said when its February I quite often dream of living in San Diego but that would get boring

Edited September 15, 2013 by canadiancoops

[Terminal Moraine]

Spring:Cold first half, warming up towards the third half of spring. Moderate snow fall followed up by minimal rainfall. Generally humidity is low but brings some periods of humidity.

A spring with three halves, now that would be an extreme season!

[Weather-history]

A mixture of everything except gales. I could survive a climate without seeing a gale again. Occasional extremes.

[Lettucing Gutted]

A spring with three halves, now that would be an extreme season!

That would be too extreme for me especially if it involves a very mild/very warm halve.

 

Here's my ideal temperatures in max and min order:-

January -3C/-10C

February   -3C/-10C

March 5C/-5C

April   7C/-3C

May 10C/0C

June   13C/3C (think 20th June 2004)

July 15C/5C (think 4th July 1965)

August   15C/5C (think many days in August 1912)

September 12C/2C

October 9C/-1C

November 5C/-5C

December 0C/-8C

Edited September 15, 2013 by Craig Evans

[Jax]

A mixture of everything except gales. I could survive a climate without seeing a gale again. Occasional extremes.

Oh I hate gail ( err opps) gales with a passion, they just destroy and cost money (both )

[Isolated Frost]

Stockholm / Helsinki / Sapporo / Geneve / Brussels / Lyon / Athens / Los Angeles / Naples / New York City / Montreal / Boston

Jan/Feb/Mar/Apr/May/Jun/Jul/Aug/Sep/Oct/Nov/Dec

Edited September 15, 2013 by Isolated Frost

[cheese]

The temp ranges looks like Oslo, Norway to me but not the pic

 

I think my part of the world has huge extremes and generally good weather variations - winters down to minus 40oC and dry air but often snow storms to plus 37oC in summer with low humidity and low precip

 

That said when its February I quite often dream of living in San Diego but that would get boring

Close, it's Stockholm, Sweden.

 

Your part of the world has winters too cold for me. I don't want to -40C, ever, except to say that I've experienced it once, and once is enough. Even -30C is unnecessarily cold in my eyes. Ideally the temperature would fall to -20C a few times each year but no more. Something like this and this would be good.

Edited September 15, 2013 by cheese

[syed2878]

climate i would like summers to be dry sunny temps bitwene 20-30c and enough rain to help the garden. Snowy winters every year and same with summers.

[Interitus]

In addition to pollution another key factor for the low sunshine hours in Chongqing is the Asian Monsoon System.  The cool and damp Northeast winter monsoon acts like a giant fog machine drawing cool air from the north over the even colder East China Sea leading to widespread dense fogs and thick Stratus cloud which is maintained over the cold ground too.  Also the hot and humid Southwest summer monsoon generates lots of thunderstorms which merge into big Mesoscale Convective Complexes with extensive stratiform canopies.

 

That's not actually quite how it works. The prevailing westerlies are stronger in the winter half of the year and the low level tropospheric flow (eg 850mb) splits to the north and south of the Tibetan plateau and then converge over the Sechuan basin with the southern branch bringing moisture from India and the Bay of Bengal. Higher level flow (500mb) is slowed down over the top of the plateau causing divergent flow over Sechuan which combined with the convergence at lower levels causes persistant uplift forming extensive sheets of nimbostratus and altostratus but restricted to the lower troposphere. The ground is not actually that cold, there is a negative correlation between the cloud and temperatures i.e the cloud keeps it warmer.

 

Fascinating stuff!

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=SEO_RyNDJ0gC&pg=PA257&lpg=PA257&dq=sichuan+basin+cloud&source=bl&ots=HY7SiTtA5I&sig=zXajqxB5OIXuTpWyn--fjfNjNbI&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6BA4UvLJGo2BhAeFioDQCw&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=sichuan%20basin%20cloud&f=false

Edited September 17, 2013 by Interitus

[SomeLikeItHot]

Ideal would involve living near the beach somewhere where the ocean is comfortably swimmable year round, (ie aprox 20 + degrees), nice days in winter hitting 20+C so you can have a relaxing afternoon bbq and go for a swim in the ocean. Summer is warm but most of the time the really high temps are cooled by the ocean breeze and even better to go swimming.

 

eg Port Macquarie NSW mid north coast Australia.

 

Jan  26 / 18

Feb  26 / 18

Mar  25 / 17

Apr  23 / 14

May 21 / 11

Jun 19 /  9

Jul  18  /  7

Aug  18 / 8

Sep  20 / 10

Oct  22 / 13

Nov  23 / 15

Dec 25 / 17

 

Ocean Temps 25 Late Feb, 19 Late Aug.

 

On the other hand I do enjoy having a nice frost and snowfall on my doorstep on occassion, but not sure I want the cool temps the rest of the time.

[Thundery wintry showers]

Since some of us are now fantasising, I may as well add some stats for an 'ideal climate' location that I created out of my own imagination, called "Weatherland".  It lies about 15 miles inland from a north and east-facing coast on an island approximately the size of France, making it exposed to "cold air, warm sea" scenarios from the N and E, while fairly sheltered from the west.  There is a mountain range in the south of the island which helps to trigger significant thundery activity from southerly flows in the summer, similar to what France gets off the Pyrenees and Spanish plateau.  Daylight hours range from 10 in midwinter to 14 in midsummer.

It sees an irregular succession of anticyclones move from west to east and is exposed to five main weather patterns:

1.  Westerly- bright and showery, most showers in afternoon due to diurnal heating, often thundery in summer, cool in summer, average temps in winter.

2.  Anticyclonic- dry with plenty of sunshine, sometimes broken skies, sometimes clear, rarely cloudy for long.  Temps above average in summer, near average in winter.

3.  Southerly- similar to anticyclonic but with temps well above average, significant thundery outbreaks in summer esp. near the end of a heatwave

4.  Northerly- bright and showery, temps well below average, showers usually of snow November-March with snowfalls likely in the more potent northerlies in Apr/May/Oct.

5.  Easterly- when high pressure slides across to the North, cooler than average, dry and bright in summer, snow showers in winter

 

Climatological averages: (max temp, min temp, rainfall, sunshine, thunder, snow falling, snow lying)

 

Jan:  5C, -3C, 85mm, 132hrs, 3, 17, 17

Feb:  6C, -3C, 78mm, 136hrs, 2, 16, 15

Mar: 9C, 0C, 83mm, 178hrs, 3, 14, 9

Apr: 13C, 3C, 88mm, 204hrs, 5, 7, 2

May: 19C, 7C, 101mm, 243hrs, 7, 2, 0

Jun: 23C, 11C, 113mm, 247hrs, 8, 0, 0

Jul: 25C, 13C, 110mm, 253hrs, 8, 0, 0

Aug: 25C, 13C, 127mm, 240hrs, 8, 0, 0

Sep: 20C, 9C, 95mm, 200hrs, 6, 0, 0

Oct: 14C, 4C, 88mm, 171hrs, 4, 7, 2

Nov:  8C, -1C, 89mm, 135hrs, 3, 13, 10

Dec:  6C, -3C, 86mm, 128hrs, 3, 16, 16

 

Summer rainfall totals don't tell the whole story because, as in some of the wetter parts of continental Europe and the continental USA, a lot of the rainfall is heavy and short-lived and so it does not necessarily rain for a higher proportion of the time than is normal over much of eastern Britain.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Thundery wintry showers

[BlueSkies_do_I_see]

TWS: It sounds like a lovely climate!  Other than the UK which island would you consider has the best climate on the planet?  Japan, New Zealand?

 

I would like somewhere where you can ski with guaranteed snow in the winter and a hot summer with warm seas in the summer.

 

The closest in Europe to this are the Pyrenees or Northern Italy near Alps and Med.  But obviously these aren't islands.

Edited September 18, 2013 by BlueSkies_do_I_see

[Thundery wintry showers]

It's quite a difficult question because all islands seem to have some downsides from my perspective.  Many of them, rather like the British Isles, are too narrow to support much homegrown convection and then there's the issue of many islands being either cloudy and windswept, or located in tropical or desert regions of the world.  If I had to name an island at a push it would probably be New Zealand, as most parts of NZ boast a similarly changeable climate to Britain but with somewhat more sunshine, and there is also considerable variation in climate between different parts of the island, including a relatively tropical climate in the North Island and a sharp gradient between the wet west and dry east in the South Island.

 

I imagine that I would probably be most at home in some continental parts of Europe (Cent + E France, southern Germany for instance) due to the continental summers which can be quite a close match for my 'ideal' climate, and they are more prone to 'proper' winters, though I would be likely to miss those "cold air, warm sea" snow showers scenarios that we are relatively used to in eastern parts of Britain.

Edited September 18, 2013 by Thundery wintry showers

[Stu_London]

^{Somewhere like Virginia or DC in the states would be interesting.}

 

^{Warm summers, cold winters, occasional tornado and hurricane threats.}

 

^{The east coast of South Korea is not dissimilar however a bit wetter and more humid in summer and probably a bit cold in winter.}

[Summer of 95]

http://www.city-data.com/forum/weather/1946651-rate-climate-mariehamn-land-islands.html

 

This one is amazingly good for an island location at 60 deg. North. Summers are incredibly warm and sunny considering it's in the middle of a cold sea- it doesn't seem to suffer marine stratomuck. Winters are cold enough to keep a snow and ice pack but seldom Arctic. Really shows up how rubbish the UK climate is when you compare Shetland at the same latitude. 

Edited September 18, 2013 by Summer of 95

[Bobby]

I wouldn't change much about the climate here to be honest. I'd prefer more snow and proper cold in winter, more thunderstorms. A little more extreme weather in general to keep things interesting. But then the rarity of extreme weather in the UK makes it more special you could argue. I love the variability and unpredictablity of our climate. You never know what's coming beyond a few days. In many places you can make a confident bet on what the weather will be like in a few days without looking at any charts/forecasts and probably be correct. Good luck with that in the UK at anytime of year! Even when looking at the charts surprises lurk around the corner constantly.

[March Blizzard]

^{Somewhere like Virginia or DC in the states would be interesting.}

^{Warm summers, cold winters, occasional tornado and hurricane threats.}

^{The east coast of South Korea is not dissimilar however a bit wetter and more humid in summer and probably a bit cold in winter.}

DC surprised me in regards to its winters, it's actually not cold at all, with highs around 6-8C and lows around -2C to 0C. In fact, if you check the figures, many American cities are milder in winter than many people are lead to believe.

[Stu_London]

DC surprised me in regards to its winters, it's actually not cold at all, with highs around 6-8C and lows around -2C to 0C. In fact, if you check the figures, many American cities are milder in winter than many people are lead to believe.

 

You have to remember that those are average temperatures. DC is right in the battleground area between the sub tropical air coming up Florida and the cold continental air from Canada. I suspect that a maritime influence also contributes to keeping average temperatures higher than more central areas at the same latitude.

 

For me that makes things all the more interesting - in February for example you could easily go from a pleasant 20C to a bone chilling -10C and being buried in snow within a matter of a couple of days. Our climate averages might not be that different for winter, but we have a much more homogenised version thanks to that pesky gulf stream 

[Konstantinos]

Mediterranean climate. And hot waves for swimming in summer and cold - snowing in high altitudes during winter.