On 17/08/2015 13:00, John Hall wrote:
In message , Alan
Gardiner writes
John Hall wrote in
:

In message , Alan
Gardiner writes

A cloudy start in St Albans but now sunny and just over 20C with
almost no wind, very pleasant. As a consequence of the lack of wind
cloud takes some time to move on so you can be unlucky in these
conditions.

The reverse in Cranleigh, Surrey. Sunny early on, but by noon it was
predominantly cloudy, and the cloud seems to have become increasingly
thick through the afternoon.

Clouded up again in the afternoon, today looks more promising.

Alan

Looking at the weather reports in my newspaper this morning, I was
startled to see that the sunshine readings for both Epsom and
Farnborough (Hants) - the nearest places to me that are listed - were
about 9 hours. Then I saw the tell-tale asterisks next to the figures,
which indicates that they are "estimates". More like computer guesses
based on the forecast, I suspect! I don't know why Accuweather can't be
honest, and put either a space or a dash when they don't have an actual
reading.

I now have little faith in such statistics (or ineed most things) as
printed in the media. Sunshine figures are d-1 and in some cases up to
1800 GMT only. I commented the other day on some local maximum
temperatures displayed by Ogimet and Weatheronline - way out. The
problem is that in these days of copy and paste and electronic news
gathering such errors are merrily transmitted on.
I now use 2 sources for such information. UKMO if I have the time to dig
deep or Roger Brugge's COL site.

--
George in Swanston, Edinburgh, 580'asl
www.swanstonweather.co.uk
www.eppingweather.co.uk
www.winter1947.co.uk