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How likely is rain at Glastonbury Festival?

Saturday, June 5, 2010

posted in Music

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This year will mark my third visit to Glastonbury Festival, where Bono’s pain will be my pleasure as U2 make way for Gorillaz to headline on Friday night. Hooray! I’m very excited about Glastonbury because, as ever, I’m sure the music, comedy, arts, crafts and booze will be outstanding.

There is, however, the inevitable and slightly upsetting prospect of bucketload after bucketload of teeming, inglorious, skin-wrinkling rain. In 2004 and 2007 I shivered in the drizzle, hot spiced cider in hand, and boogied in the muddy bog. Augustus Gloop: eat your heart out. Last year at Glade was no exception – once again I brought the clouds.

This year I’m praying I won’t be the bad weather omen and we’ll have at least one day of good old-fashioned sunshine and a chance to shed the kagoul for once.

Is that too much to ask?

Well. I’ve done a bit of digging and looked up the historical weather data from nearby Bristol airport around the time of Glastonbury festivals going back to 1997. The results are in the table below:

Year	Headliners	Friday		Saturday		Sunday		Verdict
		High (C)	Conds	High (C)	Conds	High (C)	Conds
1997	The Prodigy Radiohead Massive Attack	15	Rain	15	Rain	17	12	Rubbish!
1998	Blur Primal Scream Pulp	15	Rain	18	Cloudy	18	Cloudy	OK
1999	REM Manic Street Preachers Hole	22	Sunny	24	Sunny	17	Rain	Good
2000	Chemical Brothers David Bowie Basement Jaxx	18	Cloudy	*	No data	*	No data	Hazy
2002	Stereophonics Manu Chau Fatboy Slim	18	Cloudy	17	Cloudy	19	Cloudy	Dull
2003	De La Soul Flaming Lips Damien Rice	18	Cloudy	21	Cloudy	26	Sunny	Good
2004	James Brown Oasis Orbital	20	Sunny	16	Rain	20	Cloudy	Bit rubbish
2005	The Killers KT Tunstall White Stripes	22	Sunny	*	No data	*	No data	Fog
2007	The Who Bjork Arcade Fire	18	Storms	20	Cloudy	16	Cloudy	Rubbish
2008	Massive Attack Groove Armada Mark Ronson	19	Rain	21	Sunny	20	Sunny	Good
2009	Blur The Prodigy Tom Jones	24	Sunny	25	Sunny	22	Rainy	Good
2010	Stevie Wonder Gorillaz Pet Shop Boys	25	Sunny	24	Sunny	25	Sunny	Awesome

Data kindly provided by Bristol Airport via Weather Underground

So the data seems to suggest that your average day at Glastonbury will be about 19°, cloudy, and you’re very likely to see Basement Jaxx or The Prodigy. And as for rain, here’s the conclusion:

• Chance of rain on any single day of the festival: 24%
• Chance of rain on any festival as a whole: 88%

Compare that with my experience so far:

• Chance of rain on any single day of the festival if Simon is there: 66%
• Chance of rain on any festival as a whole if Simon is going: 100%

So you see I feel entitled, even owed, a dry festival. Please, let it be this year!

Update (June 21, 2010)

The weather forecasts from Accuweather and Weather.com are pointing to, astonishingly, a dry, sunny festival. Let it be true, ye Gods!

Update (July 2010)

I’ve added the data from 2010′s amazing, sunny, dry, hot festival.

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