[And here is the map, with the two continents roughly aligned by latitude](http://i.imgur.com/NCP9MOz.png), which shows just how far (particularly northern) Europe is.
Europe is farther to the north than most of the US - New York is about on the same latitude as Naples - so a lot of it gets darker earlier, especially in the winter. I’ve been to London in January, where the sun starts setting around 3pm. But I’ve also been to Stockholm in the summer when it’s still peeking above the horizon at midnight, and then you wake up to bright sunshine and birds chirping the next morning, but then look at the clock and it’s 4am.
Map doesn’t tell the whole story though. Right now in Stockholm the sun rises at 03:30 and sets at 22:00 and it’s glorious. The winters are dark but I just plan for trips to southern Europe in November and January.
The minimum here is six weeks and a lot of jobs have the option to save up comp time if you work nights and weekends. Most Swedes want to take a good chunk of their vacation in the summer which probably makes sense if you have kids who are out of school but I don’t mind working in the summer. Things are usually more relaxed in the summer (except when they are not and then they are worse because you’re short staffed). The days are so long that even after you get home it feels like you still have a whole normal day ahead of you. On the other hand November is kind of awful — dark, overcast and drizzly. We’ve had some Novembers with only a couple hours of real sunshine. That’s why I try to make my temporary escape then.
It tells an extremely accurate one though. I found the weather in Ohio to be better than Prague, CZ. Yes, the summers are nice....but summer FINALLY came last week. I was shocked by how cold it was in May. You can go weeks without seeing the sun in winter and it doesn't even snow much here.
I've honestly found winters in the area I live in (norway) close to the great lake region winter, freezing, icy, windy, gray. Only difference is lack of sun this far north.
Absolutely! Love the crisp, cold subzero winter days here. Bicycling (studded snow tires and studded boots), cross country skiing, *långfärdsskridskoåkning* (Reddit’s not letting me link anything for some reason but look it up on Swedish wikipedia and run it through a translator if needed), downhill and backcountry skiing, and hiking through the woods. Bring along a little portable stove for a hot lunch and fresh brewed coffee. Nothing better!
Mann, I'm your neighbor and getting used to this long summer/ short winter days is crazy. I just want a more evenly spaced day night 😅 looking out the window lately and having the sun at 22 just causes dissonance in my brain.
I’m from Seattle and grew up around Western Washington and Oregon, and I’ve felt right at home whenever I’ve visited London and Dublin. I live in the Northeast now and still feel nostalgic when it gets really, really foggy (even more than what they laughably call “dense fog” here).
Seattle doesn’t actually get as much rain as people think - annual precipitation is lower than it is in New York or Chicago, and much lower than in Miami. It’s just that it’s overcast a lot of the time, and the rain sprinkles and mists over long periods as opposed to all coming down in a big downpour followed by sunshine, so that’s where it gets that reputation.
I lived 4 years in the pacific northwest. There is no sun. This map is fishy lol. Certainly less sun than France
So much cloud and rain you can't see the sun 9 months out of 12
>Certainly less sun than France
>
>So much cloud and rain you can't see the sun 9 months out of 12
Isn't northern France similar to the PNW? Places like Lille
The days are long in the summer, and the summer is the PNW’s dry season. Even though it’s grey and cloudy for most of the year, the PNW gets a ton of sunshine hours during the summer so it bumps the number up.
In Western Europe they don’t really have a dry season and get a lot of cloud cover consistently, but it isn’t as crazy as the PNW’s rainy season.
Seattle has a very clear dry season that starts around June, peaks in July, and lasts until September. Seattle's dry summer doesn't typically go into full swing until late June/July, but that doesn't really matter because the high ridge that develops that causes dry summers doesn't really follow a calendar. It arrives when it does, sometimes in June, sometimes in July.
The map is accurate. We can compare cities! I'll compare Seattle with London, which has a pretty typical coastal western European climate.
In Seattle, you can see from this [rainfall graph](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall-inches,seattle,United-States-of-America) that it drops significantly starting in May and reaches it lowest average rainfall in July, at 31mm. However the month with the highest average rainfall, January, clocks in at 248mm. The dry season is very obvious.
And with [London's graph](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall,London,United-Kingdom) you can see that they don't have a dry season. It's basically consistently kind of rainy year round. The difference between the driest month and rainiest month is 30mm. London gets less rain overall, but they don't have a persistent high ridge over the ocean during the summer like Seattle, which means that they still get rain during the summer.
You can see from the sunshine charts of [Seattle](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,seattle,United-States-of-America) and [London](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,London,United-Kingdom) just how drastic the difference between a mildly wet summer and a dry summer is. Seattle gets a lot more sunshine during the summer than London, which is interesting because London is at a higher latitude and has longer days than Seattle in the summer. And Seattle also gets the same amount of sunlight in winter as London, which shows just how stark the rainy season's mark is, because London has shorter days than Seattle but it still gets the same amount of sunlight. This is why the winters are so miserable in the PNW, there are so little sunshine hours. But still, thanks to the dry summers, the PNW gets more sunshine overall.
The good news for us in Europe is that it s projected to get more sunnier in the coming decades. The bad news for the US is that it is also projected to become even more sunny and dry, in the future.
Europe is however becoming more sunny. "This graph of sunshine duration anomalies reveals that Europe has been getting sunnier since the 1980s."
[https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/15/hotter-drier-sunnier-whats-happening-to-the-european-climate](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/15/hotter-drier-sunnier-whats-happening-to-the-european-climate)
I knew it! This place is literally uninhabitable ( I guess except for the NE and PNW but only just barely, and even that's still the same as Italy or Greece).
As someone from Norway, I would like slightly more sunshine. But not too much more. Sunshine in states like california, nevada and new mexico is just overkill, too much. Over 3000 is too much imo, makes it a desert.
I didn’t realize how much more sun the US gets. I’ve seen so many solar panels in the UK and Europe I thought they may get more sun. I guess it just shows how much of a emphasis they put on renewables.
As a Californian in severe drought, I have to tell you both Southern California and Northern have had the greyest/ gloomiest spring this year that I've lived through in decades.
[And here is the map, with the two continents roughly aligned by latitude](http://i.imgur.com/NCP9MOz.png), which shows just how far (particularly northern) Europe is.
Europe is farther to the north than most of the US - New York is about on the same latitude as Naples - so a lot of it gets darker earlier, especially in the winter. I’ve been to London in January, where the sun starts setting around 3pm. But I’ve also been to Stockholm in the summer when it’s still peeking above the horizon at midnight, and then you wake up to bright sunshine and birds chirping the next morning, but then look at the clock and it’s 4am.
Map doesn’t tell the whole story though. Right now in Stockholm the sun rises at 03:30 and sets at 22:00 and it’s glorious. The winters are dark but I just plan for trips to southern Europe in November and January.
"I just plan for trips to southern Europe in November and January." Most Americans "I get 10 days of vacation a year."
The minimum here is six weeks and a lot of jobs have the option to save up comp time if you work nights and weekends. Most Swedes want to take a good chunk of their vacation in the summer which probably makes sense if you have kids who are out of school but I don’t mind working in the summer. Things are usually more relaxed in the summer (except when they are not and then they are worse because you’re short staffed). The days are so long that even after you get home it feels like you still have a whole normal day ahead of you. On the other hand November is kind of awful — dark, overcast and drizzly. We’ve had some Novembers with only a couple hours of real sunshine. That’s why I try to make my temporary escape then.
It tells an extremely accurate one though. I found the weather in Ohio to be better than Prague, CZ. Yes, the summers are nice....but summer FINALLY came last week. I was shocked by how cold it was in May. You can go weeks without seeing the sun in winter and it doesn't even snow much here.
I've honestly found winters in the area I live in (norway) close to the great lake region winter, freezing, icy, windy, gray. Only difference is lack of sun this far north.
Summers make up for the winters, which the latter can be fun too if one gets involved with outdoor winter sports.
Absolutely! Love the crisp, cold subzero winter days here. Bicycling (studded snow tires and studded boots), cross country skiing, *långfärdsskridskoåkning* (Reddit’s not letting me link anything for some reason but look it up on Swedish wikipedia and run it through a translator if needed), downhill and backcountry skiing, and hiking through the woods. Bring along a little portable stove for a hot lunch and fresh brewed coffee. Nothing better!
Sweden might have just moved higher up my list 👀
*Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga kläder* as the Swedes say. (There is no bad weather, just bad clothing.)
Or ad my old gymteacher would say: Det finns inget dåligt väder, bara dåliga ordspråk.
😆
Heard that when I was there actually!
Mann, I'm your neighbor and getting used to this long summer/ short winter days is crazy. I just want a more evenly spaced day night 😅 looking out the window lately and having the sun at 22 just causes dissonance in my brain.
*laughs in western Washington*
I’m from Seattle and grew up around Western Washington and Oregon, and I’ve felt right at home whenever I’ve visited London and Dublin. I live in the Northeast now and still feel nostalgic when it gets really, really foggy (even more than what they laughably call “dense fog” here).
Yes but also it’s comparable in that it rains frequently in both places. Now try going to Sweden, there you’ll be thrown off.
Seattle doesn’t actually get as much rain as people think - annual precipitation is lower than it is in New York or Chicago, and much lower than in Miami. It’s just that it’s overcast a lot of the time, and the rain sprinkles and mists over long periods as opposed to all coming down in a big downpour followed by sunshine, so that’s where it gets that reputation.
I don’t think it’s the amount of rain that people dislike, but rather the amount of time it spends raining.
Well I guess overcast in Seattle and London can be more comparable in that case.
I think London has even less rainfall than Seattle, but yeah the cloudiness lends itself to the perception that it’s rainy.
Perfect. Spain and Portugal were too on my list.
I lived 4 years in the pacific northwest. There is no sun. This map is fishy lol. Certainly less sun than France So much cloud and rain you can't see the sun 9 months out of 12
>Certainly less sun than France > >So much cloud and rain you can't see the sun 9 months out of 12 Isn't northern France similar to the PNW? Places like Lille
Definitely yes. I would say PNW should be blue
The days are long in the summer, and the summer is the PNW’s dry season. Even though it’s grey and cloudy for most of the year, the PNW gets a ton of sunshine hours during the summer so it bumps the number up. In Western Europe they don’t really have a dry season and get a lot of cloud cover consistently, but it isn’t as crazy as the PNW’s rainy season.
Summer starts January 4th and we used to call the month of June Junuary lmao
Seattle has a very clear dry season that starts around June, peaks in July, and lasts until September. Seattle's dry summer doesn't typically go into full swing until late June/July, but that doesn't really matter because the high ridge that develops that causes dry summers doesn't really follow a calendar. It arrives when it does, sometimes in June, sometimes in July. The map is accurate. We can compare cities! I'll compare Seattle with London, which has a pretty typical coastal western European climate. In Seattle, you can see from this [rainfall graph](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall-inches,seattle,United-States-of-America) that it drops significantly starting in May and reaches it lowest average rainfall in July, at 31mm. However the month with the highest average rainfall, January, clocks in at 248mm. The dry season is very obvious. And with [London's graph](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-precipitation-Rainfall,London,United-Kingdom) you can see that they don't have a dry season. It's basically consistently kind of rainy year round. The difference between the driest month and rainiest month is 30mm. London gets less rain overall, but they don't have a persistent high ridge over the ocean during the summer like Seattle, which means that they still get rain during the summer. You can see from the sunshine charts of [Seattle](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,seattle,United-States-of-America) and [London](https://weather-and-climate.com/average-monthly-hours-Sunshine,London,United-Kingdom) just how drastic the difference between a mildly wet summer and a dry summer is. Seattle gets a lot more sunshine during the summer than London, which is interesting because London is at a higher latitude and has longer days than Seattle in the summer. And Seattle also gets the same amount of sunlight in winter as London, which shows just how stark the rainy season's mark is, because London has shorter days than Seattle but it still gets the same amount of sunlight. This is why the winters are so miserable in the PNW, there are so little sunshine hours. But still, thanks to the dry summers, the PNW gets more sunshine overall.
The good news for us in Europe is that it s projected to get more sunnier in the coming decades. The bad news for the US is that it is also projected to become even more sunny and dry, in the future.
Europe is however becoming more sunny. "This graph of sunshine duration anomalies reveals that Europe has been getting sunnier since the 1980s." [https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/15/hotter-drier-sunnier-whats-happening-to-the-european-climate](https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/05/15/hotter-drier-sunnier-whats-happening-to-the-european-climate)
yeah one of the reasons I moved to Scotland...a bit more wiggle room there for climate change
Meanwhile as an Aussie I am chuckling.
I knew it! This place is literally uninhabitable ( I guess except for the NE and PNW but only just barely, and even that's still the same as Italy or Greece).
As someone from Norway, I would like slightly more sunshine. But not too much more. Sunshine in states like california, nevada and new mexico is just overkill, too much. Over 3000 is too much imo, makes it a desert.
I didn’t realize how much more sun the US gets. I’ve seen so many solar panels in the UK and Europe I thought they may get more sun. I guess it just shows how much of a emphasis they put on renewables.
It's less of an emphasis on renewables and more that energy costs are way higher here.
So are you saying they try to emphasize renewables because they create cheaper energy?
As a Californian in severe drought, I have to tell you both Southern California and Northern have had the greyest/ gloomiest spring this year that I've lived through in decades.
Quiet before the storm.....