how do we score it?
we weigh three things together for each spot: how much sunshine's forecast, how dry it'll be, and how warm it'll feel. sunshine counts most, dryness comes next, and warmth is just a seasonal nudge — judged against what's normal for the time of year rather than a flat temperature, so a crisp, clear january day can still score well, and a grey, muggy one in july doesn't get an unearned boost just for being mild. the rain figure is an hour-by-hour average across the day out (9am to 6pm, with the last couple of hours counting for less, since most people are heading home) — not just the single wettest hour, so one sharp shower at 4pm doesn't write off a dry morning. a grey day that stays dry still scrapes a respectable score; a properly wet one sinks, and bad days keep their own different scores rather than all bottoming out on the same number. worth knowing: open-meteo (our forecast source) already blends multiple national weather models into one best-estimate number before it ever reaches us. we score on top of that single figure — we don't independently compare the raw models ourselves.