Jerseygirl

You miss the point...the irony of an immigrant complaining about immigrants.

Jaxbar

If we want to talk about problems with the weather... I never met anyone in the UK who lost their home to it, here I have met a fair few, a few more get killed by lightening every year and I have experienced a tornado.

Give me a bit of drizzle rather than that any day.

Here is the reality about UK weather.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/...averages1.html

stagsgrl

Goodbye and close the door as you leave Mr California.More room for those of us who love the UK.
Go and enjoy the superficial US.

Pandajuice

No I got the point, but the irony is lost when I say for the second time that I'm not complaining about it. I'm putting out there a fact supported by data and an opinion held by 58% of British Citizens.

Ah, good post and link. That is the reality of UK weather and a good way to prove my point. If you look at the data for Northern England, you'll first see the mean (average) temperature for 2007 listed there is 9.6 degrees C. That's equivalent to just under 50 degrees (49.28) Fahrenheit. By Californian (and all of the Southwest US, which includes Arizona, for that matter)standards, that is quite cold. The SW US is used to yearly mean temperatures of around 28 degrees Celsius or 82 degrees F.

In the next column, you'll find the total hours of sunshine for Northern England in 2007. That figure is 1493.3 hours, but we'll round up to 1500 to make it easy. We'll also assume that the average hours of daylight throughout the entire year in Northern England is 12 hours (gets as low as 7 in the winter but as high as 16 in summer). So if you divide 1500 hours of sunshine, by the averge length of daylight (it's never sunny at night obviously), you get a total of 125 days of sunshine out of 365 for the year. That's a little less than 2/3 of the year, during daylight, without sunshine.

Seeing the data laid out like that, from your own link, I have to ask, doesn't it seem plausible then that there is some fact in my words when I say it's not unusual to go 30 or 60 days without seeing one ray of sunshine when 240 days out of 365 are completely sunless?

Again, I'll put it into relative terms as this whole discussion centers around what someone from Arizona might think and feel after moving here (and what I thought and felt coming from California which is a similar climate to Arizona).
I picked a random city called Yuma (http://www.azmetro.com/yumafacts.html) in the state of Arizona and found that it recieves 4,133 hours of sunshine per year. Keep in mind, the maximum amount of sunshine physically possible is 4,400. 4,133 hours is almost 3 times the amount of hours of sunshine than what England receives and equates to (using our previously established 12 hours of daylight) just over 344 days of sunshine out of 365 per year.

Again, I appreciate you digging up those numbers for me so that the OP can put data to prove what I abstractly was talking about before. Someone from Arizona who is used to an average of 28 degrees Celsius and 344 days of sunshine per year is going to have a massive shock (as I did) when spending a year or more in England due to the weather.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

Get a bad front that sits over the country and you can get clouds and rain sit for a straight week, yes. Sunless for 30, 60 or 90 days, no. 30 rarely, 60 and 90, never. It's your perspective as a comparison from where you come from of constant sunshine. You're missing the very nature of the UK climate in it's unpredictability. Scotland and the North will often see all four seasons in a few hours, let alone one day. The south has significantly more sunshine and warmer summers. To be fair though, I think you have had a bad 12 months. I dont remember the rain ever being so bad and the flood records would attest to that.

Some people really dont like the lack of sunshine, natives as well as immigrants but a far, far greater percentage are perfectly able to go about their daily lives not really too concerned about whether Mr Sunshine has come out to play. You also have to realise that there are many people that dislike the consequence of no rain quite intensely, as well as stifling heat which 'average' tempatures of 28 degrees produces for significant periods of time.

It's all relative and often based on home grown familiarity. No one's saying you are wrong to point out to the OP your own reaction to the climate as it is entirely different to AZ. I believe on page one I said the very same thing you ended up mathematically concluding ... it's cloudy for day, rainy for a day and then the sun comes out. My description of the weather however, is for the most part, for more accurate

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

I hope I've helped you gain a little perspective on your own opinion

And for what it's worth, I detested America as a place to live but I would never be so arrogant as to come onto a board for Americans and decide to announce that life there was "inferior" in any way. I'm sure you didnt mean to come across that way, but then Americans never realise they do. Seeing as we are speaking freely however, I have to say, it's attitudes like yours that are a huge part of why I can't abide living in the US.

Bevm

Moving from California/Arizona to Yorkshire is a bit like moving to another planet in respect to climate. I know you're not complaining as such, but did it never cross your mind that it might not suit? I'm originally from the north, and I've visited the sunbaked SW USA a number of times and I understand what you're saying. However, I couldn't live there. Again, not a complaint, but this is why.

Too dry, too brown, too arid. A lot of the time I'd have to scuttle from airconditioned house to car to shopping mall, as many do. I know someone who ended up with rickets because she didn't get enough sun exposure there! As I'm a person who loves the outdoors, preferably green, this would be very hard for me. But I do know people who love it there, who love the desert landscapes of Arizona and New Mexico.

Coastal California is beautiful. I could live there -- if I could avoid having to drive everywhere, and didn't have to live in a suburb with no sidewalks because no one ever walks. I prefer to walk to things, so I like them close, and don't mind being surrounded by neighbours. See what I mean? Different strokes

Sunlight is a serious concern, however. Lack of it is linked to depression, and I suspect that a person used to a lot of it could be hit hard. Thought of a sun lamp? I'm serious. At least take Vitamin D supplements.

But one point of what I said above is, if you're bugging your wife to move to the States with you, might she not be as unhappy there as you are near Leeds? Any thought of a compromise, of moving south, say Devon or Cornwall, where the climate's milder? They even have palm trees. Maybe there are solutions that would work for both of you.

Best wishes,

Bev

elfman

what absolute CRAP

elfman

based on my fairly regular trips Back to Britain (most recently five months ago), I'd say this is bollocks as well.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

Aye, that was bullshit even when the exrate was back at 1.7 ... and I was comparing outer London/Bucks to facility packed southern VA.

Pandajuice

Though it has taken a sudden derailment thanks to defensive expats (if the UK is so great, why are you guys in the US and why does the previously linked raw data back me up?), this thread isn't about me. I offered MY OPINIONS AND PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS about where I live and how it has affected me compared to what I was used to.

I felt that my story and my observations were similar to where the OP was coming from, so thought I'd offer her a true story about how England has affected me. As someone coming from an arid climate used to 300 days of sunshine per year, the lack of said sunshine in England came as a massive shock to me and is the biggest factor of depression for me and why I can't wait to be back in California.

Bev, I'm not sure what suburbs you visited in coastal California, but every one I've seen has plenty of sidewalks and most cities encourage walking and bicycling over driving. Also, as it pertains to privacy, living in a suburb is nothing like living in a semi-detached house with neighbours within 10 feet on all sides and rows of terraced housing. I said before that in our village near Bradford, it's rare to have a garden bigger than 8 feet by 8 feet. Most of these "yards" are also on the front of the house on the road which makes it very difficult for children to play outside. Different strokes for different folks fine, but again, I was communicating to someone used to the wide open suburbs of Arizona who might find such close neighbours off-putting.

I apologize if my personal observations have offended some expats, and they think I'm spewing crap, but I'm obviously a fairly intelligent person with the capacity for comparative thought, and my living in Northern England at this very second makes me better qualified, in my opinion, to speak about the current, up to the minute, state of the weather here and my personal feelings regarding such.

Pandajuice

Thanks, but I don't need you to offer perspective on what I've clearly stated over and over again as my own personal opinion and how I feel about the country.
Life here is inferior for me and my family (though it may not be for you; I never tried to say it was inferior to everyone), and I wasn't coming onto these boards to announce such. If you read back over the first post, you'd recognize that I did not make this thread. No, in fact, I replied to someone else asking for people's opinions on whether someone from Arizona would like it in Northen England. I felt extremely qualified to answer such a question and so I did. You should also note that nowhere in my first post did I announce that England was inferior to the states. In fact, I made it a point to list some positives and made an even bigger point, which you obviously missed, that someone with a very similar lifestyle to my former one might find Northern England the same way I do. I apologize again if it offended you and your national pride, but the post wasn't intended for you.

I'm sorry your European prejudice for Americans is clouding whatever meaning you could glean from my posts (that weren't intended or aimed at you by the way), as I don't recall having any particular attitude in my posts. I merely (yet again it needs to be said) listed what I felt were negatives from my point of view and that the OP being from a very similar climate and lifestyle might find the same negatives when she arrived here.

stagsgrl

I am also in England and yes the weather is often crap but what did you expect in Northern Europe.It just gets my goad when ignorant Americans come on here disrespecting this great country.I could never spout these views of the USA on an American website not that I would anyway as I would not be that ignorant about another country .As I said before shut the door as you leave England will survive without your condecending presence.
BYEEEE

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

I'm not offended, and I'm not living in the US. The UK has had a bad year rain wise, china had one with snow, the US has too, record cold and snowfall, states that dont usually have tornadoes are having towns ripped down. Suddenly they become part of tornado ally do they? We're calling it out because we know better, having had many more years experience than you living there.

Neither am I being defensive, I'm stating that coming onto a British Expats site and posting like you have is akin to walking in a pub, standing at the bar and declaring Britain is inferior to the USA because it's not what you know, like and want. It's rude, it's a subjective opinion based on your biases and its precisely why you and so many of your fellow countrymen (even though they may be intelligent) are disliked and dismissed as ignorant, arrogant Americans.

Jaxbar

Well I just got off the phone with my sister in Leeds who said its a bit crap today but it was sunny last week and I was there in Feb when we had lovely sunshine for first week and same temp as here in North Florida.

I posted met office data to show that there is sunshine, of course not as much as in Arizona/California but no one is going to take you seriously if you continue to insist that there can be six months without sunshine.

Look at my photos in the gallery for evidence of february sunshine!