The climate in Hatay - climate like in paradise

As a scientist I learned to avoid certain subjective and evaluating concepts like "ideally" and "nicely". Instead you learn to evaluate rather indirectly by working, lifting or avoiding subjects. Apparently the language is neutral, but actually it is not. Hence, quite unscientific: The climate in parts of Hatay might be one of the best of all acceptable climates on the whole earth. The reasons are the tolerable summer heat, the climatic long and favorable transitional seasons and the short and very toned down winter. The following table shows the annual temperatures between 1970 and 2000 for Adana and Antakya (city). The values of Adana are representative for the coastal hemline between Samandag, Arsuz, Iskenderun and Erzin.

Adana (Middle temperature in °C):

In the Amanos-mountains (”Nur-Dag”, about 2,000-m-high) the temperature decreases about 0.7 °C per 100 m of height position. Unfortunately there is no weather station in the mountain area. On the mountain ranges the annual means temperature might sway between 7 and 9 °C. The annual temperature variation in Hatay amounts ca. 20 °C. In summer 28 °C, in winter about 10 °C were measured (on an average). The middle maximum temperature in summer show that it is warm (more than 30 °C) between end of May to end of September every day. There are only few exceptions. At night it cools only seldom under 20 °C in this bout. The autumn lasts till November. It is warm with still more than 20 °C every day. Then at night it becomes quite clearly chill. All this points indicate a hot, semitropical climate. Abstractly this is also right, if there was not the wind. In comparison to other Turkish cities (like Adana, Mersin and Antalya) in the same Mediterranean climate zone, the midsummer-maximum-temperatures in Hatay are a little bit lower than at other places in the Mediterranean area. The reason for the deeper temperatures lies in the strong current which accumulates in summer of the Mediterranean Sea. The summer-weather in Hatay exists of three hours of rain and 2181 hours of dry weather. From 2181 hours are to be expected between 900 and 1100 hours of sun. Astronomically possible would be a little bit more than 1100 hours of sun.