How would you order the following weather conditions?

[darkxshade]

Freakin meteorologist and forecast sites... why are they so damn confusing?

Discuss!

 

[darkswordsman17]

I don't think I've ever heard partly sunny. Here's my take on them though.

Mostly sunny tends to mean how much of the day is going to be sunny, as in it'll be sunny most of the day, but then clouds will come in for a few hours, either as they're rolling in later in the day or rolling out earlier in the day.

Partly cloudy can mean you'll see clouds all day but it won't be full coverage. Or possibly light clouds that full cover but let a lot of sunlight through. Partly sunny would more or less be the same thing as this, to me at least. Its not a gloomy day, and/or the clouds are broken up such that there's a quite a bit of clouds but the sun will shine through often

Mostly cloudy would be like mostly sunny in that it'll you'll have full cloud coverage for most of the day, but the sun will come out at some point (usually either in the morning or evening as the clouds either roll in or roll out of the area).

Then again, I don't generally pay much attention beyond it saying its going to be sunny/windy/stormy and what temps. The rest is fairly irrelevant as far as what I need to know about the weather.

 

[Lifted]

I don't think I've ever heard partly sunny either. Sounds like the sun is partly hidden by the horizon.

 

[darkxshade]

Accuweather.com uses all 4


So #3 getting most votes so far... I would think partly cloudy > partly sunny because if you think about it partly cloudy means more sun and partly sunny means more cloud.

 

[AstroManLuca]

You missed the correct option.

Mostly sunny > partly cloudy = partly sunny > mostly cloudy

Partly cloudy and partly sunny are the same thing except partly cloudy can refer to night or day, not just day. Similarly, mostly sunny is the same as mostly clear, but mostly clear can apply to nighttime.

EDIT: Actually, the definition seems to vary depending on who you ask. A Google search showed that nearly every source had a different definition. But it seems pretty simple to just claim that party cloudy and partly sunny are the same thing. What I've heard is >70% = "mostly" and between 30 and 70% = "partly."

 

[JulesMaximus]

They are all vague enough to be used interchangeably and maintain a fairly high degree of accuracy in reporting.

 

[darkxshade]

You missed the correct option.

Mostly sunny > partly cloudy = partly sunny > mostly cloudy

Partly cloudy and partly sunny are the same thing except partly cloudy can refer to night or day, not just day. Similarly, mostly sunny is the same as mostly clear, but mostly clear can apply to nighttime.

Good call, partly cloudy could be used for night time and partly sunny for daytime and mean the same thing though they should just all go with partly cloudy across the board if that's what they meant to avoid confusion.

They are all vague enough to be used interchangeably and maintain a fairly high degree of accuracy in reporting.

I had a feeling that was their MO.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

With a side of fries.

 

[nonameo]

what the hell? partly sunny? never heard of that one before.