Your dream climates

The year 1960 veritably had an unforgettably electrical monsoon season, that is for sure - with the most thundery year ever recorded since the station started recording in 1950.

Some 144 days with thunderstorms were recorded, clearly beating the last record of 131 in 1957.

The first pulse of thunderstorm activity was rather premature in February, which saw squalls of wind, rain and hail with thunder and lightning on 22nd and 27th. Late March also featured some unseasonably humid and thundery weather, with 30th in particular being very muggy, before a severe thunderstorm produced 165 lightning strikes within 3 miles, and provided great entertainment. April had 9 days with thunder and three particularly intense electrical storms. May recorded 17 thunderstorm days, with intense lightning on several days, and hailstorms on 4th and 9th. It was also a particularly cool month.

However, it was the summer monsoon that was unsually powerful, with a great number of thunderstorms compared to usual keeping a lid on the temperatures. Local residents say they are usually happy for such thunderstorms, as when they develop in the afternoon they keep temperatures from becoming unusually hot. However, this time, there were "just too darn many", they described. It was almost hard to find a moment to go outside due to the risk of lightning or sudden heavy downpours. July recorded 29 days with thunder, and only recorded one very hot day reaching 36.7°C. The storm on 28th was intensely loud, with 416 close lightning strikes disturbing and scaring the residents. The first half of August was similarly festooned with thunderstorms.

"It was like one long thunderstorm, this summer", said one resident. The weather staton broke its record for most consecutive days with at least one thunderstorm, at 32 days.

Finally, on 15th August, the sun came out for much of the day, and temperatures soared to 39.9°C. Storms were soon back however - and early September saw a thunderstorm nearly every day until 19th when the monsoon finally broke. But then, a sudden heatwave in the final week of September ended with a bang, after reaching 37°C, a violent electrical storm pasted the area with over 280 lightning strikes at close range. The heatwave broke slightly but then resumed in early October, where it was over 38°C (100°F) for three days in a row. Torrential thunderstorms on 10th-11th, then it became calm once more.

November was a dry month with just one thunderstorm on 19th, and December saw the last thunderstorm day with a squall of thunder, rain and hail on 5th. This was followed by very cold weather. Temperatures dropped to  -6°C on 10th, but no snow occurred this time.

What a remarkably interesting year it has been especially for storm lovers, however.

Yeah, the place has very variable temperatures all year round, and crazy lightning storms. Most lightning within 3 miles for a single day is over 650 on one day I think.

It can get down to -6°C about once every 3 years perhaps. It has very low humidity with large diurnals in winter, so days are usually quite mild or warm. I like the occasional hard frost, and to get snow sometimes, but only for one day, so the climate has to be capable of getting quite cold on occasion.

Yeah a bad storm in the Dream Climate would see 200+ lightning strikes within a 3.1 (5km) radius.

The record high now is 47.9°C, in a heatwave during a drier summer. Temps are highly variable, so a summer month could fail to get much above 32°C, but a dry "failed monsoon" month can get extremely hot. Rainfall is highly variable too, so there can be relatively "dry" summer months or very wet ones indeed. The wettest had about 38" of rain so far.

Edit; the City just recorded its most thundery winter month on record, February 1961 with 9 thunderstorm days.

The way I'm doing it is to produce all 71 years without entering averages yet, so I can do them at the end at see how they turn out so even I don't know the exact numbers yet. It won't take me long to finish it though, at the current rate, it should be within a month.

If you cherrypicked all the hottest days, you'd definitely get an intensely hot climate. Heatwaves can happen any time of year, so you'd have upper 30's possible in winter occasionally.

1983 had the most lightning strikes within 3.1 miles on record, at 10,388. The month which contributed the most was June, which saw a record 3,731 strikes in the radius. The most in one day was 1,002, on 11th. This is not, however, the most in a day ever, but a close second. Lighting activity is highly variable, as 1981 had fewer than 4,000 strikes in the area, one of the lowest. So it's unlikely that storms are generally getting worse.