Saturday, August 11, 2007

Boston Climate Questions

In researching Boston's climate via the Climate Consultant software, I have stumbled across several questions. I am early in the process, so I am sure more will come.

1. Does "annual' mean average in cases such as temperature and windspeed where there is an average low for each month and a record low for each month? I notice there are also "design" lows, which I am not sure what those refer to.

2. Would annual percent of sunshine be the opposite percent of annual cover?

3. For fun- did anyone notice the "record" low for January temperature in Boston was 6 degrees? I'm pretty sure it was colder than that when we were there this past January.

I have learned that dry bulb temperature is what we think of as air temperature. Wet bulb temperature has to do with the cooling effects of water.

1 comment:

Peter James DeIuliis said...

anne, this is an excerpt from a comment that I posted on Karrick's blog that deals with one of your questions...

"concerning the average % sunshine, I know that the "climate consultant" program states that the annual sky cover is 58%, but I questioned that so I looked up some other resources on the web and they stated that Boston has 58% annual sunshine.... I listed 58% in my analysis for sunshine, but am still pretty unclear which is correct..."