Daily sunshine hours observed on 19th March 1983 at 03xxx stations (298 reports).
Date (00Z D to 24Z D)
-1 day
+1 day
Plot hours Plot % of theoretical max
UK only UK & ROI
Highest 10
Fair Isle (57 m, CS)9.0 hours
Cardiff, Bute Park (9 m, CS)8.9 hours
Girdstingwood No 2 (91 m, CS)8.8 hours
Drummond Castle (113 m, CS)8.2 hours
Bristol Weather Centre (42 m, CS)8.1 hours
Banff No 2 (24 m, CS)7.7 hours
Keith (106 m, CS)7.2 hours
Preston Wynne (84 m, CS)7.2 hours
Long Ashton (51 m, CS)7.2 hours
Aldroughty (30 m, CS)6.7 hours

Lowest 10
Leeming (33 m, CS)0.0 hours
Cookstown (77 m, CS)0.0 hours
St Johns (128 m, CS)0.0 hours
Bude (15 m, CS)0.0 hours
Bastreet (233 m, CS)0.0 hours
St Mawgan (103 m, CS)0.0 hours
Newquay, No 2 (32 m, CS)0.0 hours
Culdrose (76 m, CS)0.0 hours
Exeter Airport (27 m, CS)0.0 hours
Exmouth, Salterton Road (59 m, CS)0.0 hours

Average Sun = 2.1 hours

*MIDAS UK data available from 1887
*SYNOP data available from 2000
*Background satellite imagery from 25/02/2000

Data courtesy of MetOffice and OGIMET
OpenMIDAS Data - Met Office (2021): MIDAS Open: UK daily temperature data, v202107. NERC EDS Centre for Environmental Data Analysis, 08 September 2021.


Methods for measuring sunshine have changed over time, older records and some climate sites today will use a Campbell-Stokes sunshine recorder, whereas nowadays the majority of measurements will be taken using a pyrheliometer and threshold of 120 W/m^2 for sunshine. The instrumentation used is indicated by the letters in the table - WMO means a pyrheliometer was used, CS means a Campbell-Stokes recorder was used, and S means that the value was extracted from the SYNOP report (most likely to be a pyrheliometer measurement but not for certain). Clicking on an icon in the map will display a popup which also contains this information.

It is possible to convert the newer pyrheliometer measurements to a Campbell-Stokes equivalent for a fairer comparison across time, which is done for climatological purposes, and is a function which I may add to this page at some point.



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