Sunday, 3 May 2015

April showers and sunshine

March winds and April showers bring forth May flowers.
Nope.

According to wikipedia:
One of the major causes of the often heavy downpours is the position of the jet stream. In early spring, the jet stream starts to move northwards, allowing large depressions to bring strong winds and rain in from the Atlantic. 
However, we live in the east of the country, rain-shadowed from Altantic winds.  Since records began (which is June 2005 in our case), April is consistently one of the driest months of our year.

rainfall for 2014 (bars), against statistics for all years June 2005 - April 2015

Even with that one massive outlier in 2012, our recorded mean rainfall for April is 11mm, about half that of the next driest month, March with a mean of 20mm.

However, this April was the sunniest month since records began (in January 2014).  That's the sunniest month, not the sunniest April.

daily solar power generation in kWh, by month
In April 2015 we generated an average of 37.66 kWh per day.  Compare this with the significantly lower 29.60 kWh per day in April 2014, and even with the 37.17 kWh per day in the month with the longest days: June 2014.  18 April 2015 also boasted the maximum power generation in a single day so far: 56.03 kWh.

So we need a new proverb for where we live.  Maybe
March winds and April sunshine bring forth May flowers.
Who cares about rhyme, anyway?

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