birding-aus

summer and summer weather

To: Wim Vader <>
Subject: summer and summer weather
From: L&L Knight <>
Date: Tue, 15 Jul 2008 20:08:11 +1000
No need to apologise Wim, you included the word weather in your
external subject line.

If you want to be technically perfect you could say you had little in the way of summer temperatures. There is more to weather than
temperatures, although weather forecasts do seem to have a fixation
with maximum and minimum temperatures.  Other characteristics that
make up summer weather include cloud cover, winds, humidity and
rainfall.

For example, "summer" in Darwin is characterised by towering clouds
building up through the day with spectacular thunderstorms in the
evening.  Summer in Perth is characterised by hot cloudless days and
an unreliable seabreeze.  Summer in Brisbane (these days) is
characterised by high levels of humidity and balmy evenings.  Summer
in Melbourne is schizoid, alternating between heatwaves and coldsnaps.

Conversely winter weather in Brisbane and Darwin is characterised by
clear skies, while Perth is characterised by frontal rain and
Melbourne weather is simply miserable.

Defining summer weather as temperatures above 20C probably means that you have no summer nights in Tromso. Perhaps it would be better if
you referred to "summer days" as ones where the temperature rises
above 20C.

Ultimately, I suspect that the best northern European definition of
"summer weather" is weather where the locals are out sunbathing.  I
believe that both Russians and Scandinavians are likely to shed their clothes at temperatures below 20C when the weather is sunny.

Regards, Laurie

On 14/07/2008, at 12:03 AM, Wim Vader wrote:

It looks as if I have must expressed myself insufficiently clear in my last
mail. Of course I know that 'summer' is defined by various
metereological
rules, and not by temperatures, So summer comes every year,
regardless of
the weather, also in Tromsø. The last days we have had virtually 24 hrs of
sunlight (we still have the midnight sun), so also under that (for me
somewhat strange definition) we have summer here now.

My last mail was subjected 'Still no real summer weather in Tromsø', but
unfortunately the word 'weather' was inadvertently omitted in the
heading.
Sorry about that!! It is 'summer weather' we talk about here in
Tromsø when
the temperature comes above 20'C; this definition is used all over
Norway,
by the way, just as we in this countrytalk about 'tropical nights' when the
temperature does not sink below 20*C at night---we have had such
nights in
Tromsø too, but very few of them and of course none this summer.

In reality I suppose what constitutes summer weather depends on what is the
normal for that particular place. Further south in Europe 'summer
temperatures' may be those above 25*C, and on Svalbard probably
those above
8*C! (Just as they told me in Bhutan; 'everything below 5000m a.s.l. we call
foothills', while here in Tromsø we have mountains of 1200m)

Another misunderstanding: I never said that the lask of summer weather
interferes with nesting success of out birds; it does not, although both
birds and flower are several weeks later than most other years.

I clearly need to work on my English!

Wim Vader
www.birding-aus.org
birding-aus.blogspot.com

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