Does a weatherman have a rule of thumb about holiday weather?
Open any half-decent atlas and you should find maps showing the differing climates across the globe and that’s your first guide to holiday weather. On weather maps, you’ll always find the words HIGH and LOW somewhere – this refers to the air pressure. The general guide here is: HIGH – good holiday weather, LOW – bad holiday weather. If it’s heat you’re after, you might be tempted towards the equator. And while you will find some of the hottest weather in Ethiopia where temperatures average 34C or 93F, because it is a low-pressure zone you will also find rain in large amounts but short, thundery bursts. Java is a good example – it has more than 320 thundery days a year. Heading away from the equator we run into a belt of high pressure around 25 degrees latitude and the weather is dry and sunny. How dry and how sunny? Well, the Atacama Desert in Chile has enjoyed a 400-year drought, and in the northern hemisphere parts of the Sahara have clear blue skies adding up to more than 4,000 hour
