Daily sunshine hours observed on 17th May 2013 at 03xxx stations (146 reports).
Date (00Z D to 24Z D)
-1 day
+1 day
Plot hours Plot % of theoretical max
UK only UK & ROI
Highest 10
Tiree (9 m, WMO)14.9 hours
Ballypatrick Forest (156 m, DRV)14.0 hours
Magilligan No 2 (6 m, WMO)13.9 hours
Strabane, Carricklee (39 m, CS)13.0 hours
Barra: Borve (9 m, CS)12.7 hours
Ardtalnaig (130 m, CS)12.5 hours
Armagh (62 m, CS)12.4 hours
Aldergrove (63 m, WMO)12.3 hours
Dunstaffnage (3 m, DRV)12.1 hours
Edinburgh, Royal Botanic Garden No 2 (28 m, CS)12.0 hours

Lowest 10
Wittering (74 m, WMO)0.0 hours
Bedford (85 m, DRV)0.0 hours
Monks Wood (41 m, DRV)0.0 hours
Wattisham (89 m, WMO)0.0 hours
Cavendish (55 m, CS)0.0 hours
Denver (3 m, CS)0.0 hours
Skegness (6 m, CS)0.0 hours
Waddington (68 m, WMO)0.0 hours
Lerwick (82 m, WMO)0.0 hours
Fair Isle (57 m, CS)0.0 hours

Average Sun = 5.1 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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