Method to the Madness

The other day I received a viewer question asking me what the difference was between mostly sunny & partly sunny and mostly cloudy & partly cloudy. Sometimes you may hear us describe the sky conditions in this way. Trust me, there is a method to the madness. The graphic to the left shows the six most basic terms used in describing the extent of cloud cover on any given day. The percentage on the right is an indicator of the amount of potential sunlight that one will witness. For example, on a mostly sunny day 80% of the sky should be clear. Partly cloudy and partly sunny are right around the half and half mark, while mostly cloudy indicates that 80% of the sky is filled with gray. Unfortunately, for our short term forecast we are going to have to use a lot of that jargon near the bottom of the chart. -ADAM