Now when you think of festivals and rain – most music fans would think of Glastonbury.
We’ve all seen the pictures of the swamp like conditions, reports of music fans leaving with a hangover and a nice case of swamp foot after standing in ankle deep water for 4 days.
However, the statistics tell a different story.
Going back over the past 20 years, the weather forecast on the various festival weekends shows that whilst Glastonbury isn’t the driest event, it’s certainly not the wettest. That title goes to T in the Park in Scotland, which has had seem almost 110 mm of rain fall on the 9th – 11th July (the dates of this year’s festival).
So why does Glastonbury get the most publicity about the weather – is it the sheer size of the event (177,000+ tickets sold this year) or the impact of that weather? Glastonbury is now as famous for it’s weather as for it’s music – in fact, your average Daily Mail reader probably has no idea who is playing, but each year they have probably shaken their head and tutted at the pictures of the endless fields of muddy oiks in tents.
That festival has become a cultural phenomenon, the super-festival so it picks up the most press coverage and attention.
Now, though, despite being the largest, we can now say that it is not the wettest.
I wanted to show the levels of rainfall for the various festival weekends, historically.
Using The Met Office (daily/regional) data, and the dates of THIS years festivals as a marker, I created a spreadsheet of levels over the years.
I did consider adding hours of sunshine to the chart, or temperatures (represented by colour), but:
1. the data was from a different set, and would have been a monthly average instead of day-specific
2. the chart became muddled and unclear.
Any thoughts?
Now when you think of festivals and rain – most music fans would think of Glastonbury.
We’ve all seen the pictures of the swamp like conditions, reports of music fans leaving with a hangover and a nice case of swamp foot after standing in ankle deep water for 4 days.
However, the statistics tell a different story.
Going back over the past 20 years, the weather forecast on the various festival weekends shows that whilst Glastonbury isn’t the driest event, it’s certainly not the wettest. That title goes to T in the Park in Scotland, which has had seem almost 110 mm of rain fall on the 9th – 11th July (the dates of this year’s festival).
So why does Glastonbury get the most publicity about the weather – is it the sheer size of the event (177,000+ tickets sold this year) or the impact of that weather? Glastonbury is now as famous for it’s weather as for it’s music – in fact, your average Daily Mail reader probably has no idea who is playing, but each year they have probably shaken their head and tutted at the pictures of the endless fields of muddy oiks in tents.
That festival has become a cultural phenomenon, the super-festival so it picks up the most press coverage and attention.
Now, though, despite being the largest, we can now say that it is not the wettest.