Methodology
What counts as a rain day? We changed our minds
A “rain day” used to mean any day with an hour of recorded rain. That counted a 30-minute evening thunderstorm the same as a washed-out washout, and it was quietly unfair to half the Mediterranean. So we changed the definition, and we’re showing our working.
What was wrong
Convective climates, the kind that produce a short, dramatic late-afternoon storm and then carry on with the evening, were being scored like drizzle climates. When we pulled the raw daily records apart for one Adriatic resort, half of its June days saw some rain, but a third of those rain days had under 2 hours of it. A family loses a day to 6 hours of rain. Nobody loses a day to a storm during dinner.
The new rule
A rain day now means 3 or more hours of recorded precipitation, adding up to at least 4mmin the day, measured across 10 years of hourly records. The duration test alone turned out to have a blind spot of its own: weather models smear light drizzle across many hours, so a day could log “3 hours of rain” that totalled less than a millimetre - a non-event no family would notice. Requiring real depth as well as real duration means short convective bursts and trace drizzle stop counting against a destination; genuinely wet days still do. Same data, sharper question.
| Destination | Region | June rain days | August rain days |
|---|---|---|---|
| Olhos de Água | Albufeira, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Albufeira Old Town | Albufeira, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Praia da Luz | Lagos, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Morro Jable & Jandía | Fuerteventura, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Vilamoura | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Praia da Falésia | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Carvoeiro | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Alvor | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Praia da Rocha | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Armação de Pêra | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Lagos | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Salema | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Galé | Algarve, Portugal | 0 | 0 |
| Costa Adeje | Tenerife, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Los Cristianos | Tenerife, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Costa Teguise | Lanzarote, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Puerto del Carmen | Lanzarote, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Playa Blanca, Lanzarote | Lanzarote, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Caleta de Fuste | Fuerteventura, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Corralejo | Fuerteventura, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Maspalomas | Gran Canaria, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Puerto Rico, Gran Canaria | Gran Canaria, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Cala d'Or | Mallorca, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Benalmádena | Costa del Sol, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Fuengirola | Costa del Sol, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Torremolinos | Costa del Sol, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Calpe | Costa Blanca, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Benidorm | Costa Blanca, Spain | 0 | 0 |
| Valencia | Valencia, Spain | 3 | 0 |
| Barcelona | Catalonia, Spain | 3 | 3 |
| Puerto de la Cruz | Tenerife, Spain | 3 | 0 |
| Port d'Alcúdia | Mallorca, Spain | 3 | 0 |
| Port de Pollença | Mallorca, Spain | 3 | 0 |
| Salou | Costa Dorada, Spain | 3 | 3 |
| Cambrils | Costa Dorada, Spain | 3 | 3 |
| Lido di Jesolo | Veneto, Italy | 6 | 6 |
| Bardolino | Veneto, Italy | 6 | 3 |
| Sarlat & the Dordogne | Dordogne, France | 9 | 3 |
| Morzine | Haute-Savoie, France | 12 | 9 |
Days per month with ≥3 hours and ≥4mm of recorded precipitation, 2015–2024 average.
What it means for packing
The Canaries barely register: their summer rain rounds toward zero, which is why they carry the “reliably dry” reputation. The Algarve in June earns a light jacket at most. The Adriatic numbers look higher, and they deserve the context: a fair share of that is the evening-storm pattern, so the practical advice is a backup plan for 1 or 2 days rather than a wardrobe of waterproofs.
Each destination page bands this for you under “at a glance”: a quiet number gets “showers happen”, a real pattern gets “pack a backup plan”, and only the genuinely wet months get told to plan indoor days. The exact thresholds are published →
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