Nice weather we’re having

Perth, where I live, has a superb climate. Everyone who lives here knows it. To my mind, April is the most magnificent month of the year and this year, April weather has extended into May. Ridiculous amounts of mild/warm weather and blue skies.

It’s commonly held in marketing circles that the WA Tourism Association is not the sharpest axe on the block. If I were them, I would be talking up the climate of the place and encouraging the reporting of cloud statistics, which reflect well on our fair city. To help them out, I’ve constructed a prototype here (generous, I know). Cloud cover is normally measured in okta. Zero means cloudless, one means a trace of cloud, two means a clear day, six means a cloudy day and eight means complete cloud cover. I’ve constructed the Complementary Okta Scale which allows you to measure blue sky. 8/8 = solid blue sky. 0/8 = no blue sky. So here are the last 39 days:

The stats across the 39 days average out to a number that the Bureau of Meteorology define as a “clear” day. There were 4 days that individually would fit the category of a “cloudy” day. Not hard to cope with, since these days were all 25 degree-ish. You could always stay indoors.

To pick a completely random basis for comparison, here is the Melbourne data over the same period:

Here’s the Perth maximum temp over the last 38 days; maxima overwhelmingly between 25 and 30 degrees Celcius (77 and 86 Fahrenheit).

Minimum temps: between 10 and 16 degrees (50 and 59 Fahrenheit)

Wind averages 10.5 kph (6.5 mph). I think the official classification is ‘pleasant’. And relative humidity averages 46%, officially, ‘very bloody pleasant’. Okay, maybe not official.

Rain – only 5mm on the 14th April. We all took the day off.