Dear Mac, > I would have wagered a small amount that I had seen > a map showing average annual sunshine in Vermont to > be less than 30% of possible sunshine. However, I > just found a NOAA map which appears to show mean > annual sunshine here as 51 - 55 percent.
That's pretty good by U.K. standards! > ... my point remains that, since a sundial functions > as a sundial only part of the time, it really ought > to be a pleasant thing to look at when it's not working. Yes, agreed 100%. > Do you have an estimate for the percentage of working > hours during a year for a sundial at your location? That's an embarrassing question and I have had to look up the answer. It seems that in Cambridge, England, we average about 1700 hours of sunshine a year. If you take the year as being 8766 hours this means we get sun about 19% of the year. This is about 40% of daylight hours. As this list has been reminded in recent weeks, even when the sun is shining there are many reasons why a sundial might still be in shadow. The sun might be on the `wrong' side of the dial or blocked by trees, buildings, hills or other items of horizon pollution. I see, from Wikipedia that the maximum sunshine ever recorded in the U.K. in a single month was 383.9 hours at Eastbourne (East Sussex) in July 1911. That is almost 52% of the total hours in the month. You are right. We had better make our sundials good to look at even when they are in the shade! Best wishes Frank --------------------------------------------------- https://lists.uni-koeln.de/mailman/listinfo/sundial
