Talk:Climate of Istanbul

Weather box for Istanbul

In case anyone wants to include weather data in a form of a "weather box" in the Climate of Istanbul article, instead of current "climate chart" (copy the "weather box" code from the section's source)

Climate data for Istanbul
Month	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Mean daily maximum °C (°F)	8.5 (47.3)	9.7 (49.5)	11.8 (53.2)	15.3 (59.5)	20.9 (69.6)	25.4 (77.7)	27.9 (82.2)	27.8 (82.0)	24.3 (75.7)	19.4 (66.9)	15.4 (59.7)	10.7 (51.3)	18.1 (64.6)
Mean daily minimum °C (°F)	5.3 (41.5)	6 (43)	7.4 (45.3)	9.9 (49.8)	15.1 (59.2)	20 (68)	22.3 (72.1)	23.3 (73.9)	20.4 (68.7)	15.5 (59.9)	12.5 (54.5)	7.7 (45.9)	13.8 (56.8)
Average rainfall mm (inches)	49 (1.9)	37 (1.5)	38 (1.5)	29 (1.1)	38 (1.5)	32 (1.3)	13 (0.5)	11 (0.4)	26 (1.0)	42 (1.7)	33 (1.3)	52 (2.0)	400 (15.7)
Average snowfall mm (inches)	24 (0.9)	15 (0.6)	3 (0.1)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	0 (0)	7 (0.3)	49 (1.9)
Average rainy days	12.9	12.4	14.3	12.6	11.8	9.5	6.3	3.8	10	12.5	11	13.6	130.7
Average snowy days	3.7	2	0.5	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0.9	7.1
Average relative humidity (%)	77	78	74	70	70	67	67	68	68	73	73	74	72
Mean monthly sunshine hours	155.0	169.5	217.0	246.0	325.5	342.0	365.8	300.7	267.0	238.7	177.0	148.8	2,953
Mean daily sunshine hours	5	6	7	8.2	10.5	11.4	11.8	9.7	8.9	7.7	5.9	4.8	8.1
Mean daily daylight hours	9.6	10.6	12.0	13.3	14.5	15.1	14.8	13.8	12.5	11.1	9.9	9.3	12.2
Percentage possible sunshine	52	57	58	62	72	75	80	70	71	69	60	52	65
Average ultraviolet index	2	2	4	4	5	6	7	6	5	4	3	2	4
Source: Weather Atlas

D.Nino (talk) 14:28, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Nino There are already many weatherboxes in this article, and please keep in mind that Weather Atlas is not a reliable source for most weather information. Uness232 (talk) 14:37, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

No problem, that's why I've added it to the Talk Section D.Nino (talk) 14:39, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

@D.Nino I understand, but you should not be adding entire weatherboxes with Weather Atlas data in general. Weather Atlas claims, for example, that Istanbul receives 400mm of rain, which is at least 200mm away from being true in any part of the city. The sunshine data is also highly anomalous from what we would expect. Uness232 (talk) 14:59, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

References

Low quality or outdated sources in the article

The lead claims: The climate of Istanbul, classified variously as Mediterranean, oceanic, or a transitional climate between the two ...

What are the sources for the oceanic or transitional part?

p. 146 claims Northern Istanbul has a "Black Sea climate", but this source is from 1997.

It's outdated. And it is not a high quality source per WP:Scholarship.

Higher quality and more recent sources such as a Scientific Data (journal) article (here is the map) show Istanbul entirely having a Mediterranean climate.

Are there any high quality and recent sources that say Istanbul has a "oceanic, or a transitional climate"? Bogazicili (talk) 18:59, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

We have gone over this extensively in Talk: Budapest. Sources for Köppen zonation can not be maps. Maps tend to come from lower quality and lower resolution sources, and the map in questiom uses the 40mm isotherm for Mediterranean-humid subtropical climate differentiation, which is uncommon in Turkey. Instead we have to use weather boxes which provide spot data that is accurate and reliable. Look at the Köppen climate classification rules for Humid subtropical climate and oceanic climate and tell me which zones Kireçburnu and Sarıyer fit into. Uness232 (talk) 21:33, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Also MGM isn't high quality? By what metric? Uness232 (talk) 21:34, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

• I've already given the metric above, WP:SCHOLARSHIP. Also see WP:SOURCETYPES: Many Wikipedia articles rely on scholarly material. This includes WP:Secondary parts of peer-reviewed articles published on non-predatory journals. It could be books from academic presses.
• MGM source is not academic or scholarly, and the parts about Istanbul climate seems dated, from 1997. See: WP:AGE MATTERS
• The source I shared in Talk:Istanbul, Landscapes and Landforms of Turkey is written by expers and is published by Springer Publishing. That's an academic press in good standing. See, for example: Rankings_of_academic_publishers#Australian_Political_Science_rankings
• Here's another good source :

Although the climatic structure varies regionally due to the influence of the Marmara Sea and the Bosphorus, the city has a Mediterranean climate. Winters are typically cold and wet, while summers are hot and humid; the average temperature ranges between approximately 24 °C in summer and 5–10 °C in winter.

• Even newer government sources say this , p. 5:

İstanbul, konumu dolayısıyla hem Akdeniz bölgesinin iklim özelliklerini taşıyan hem de çevresindeki iklim bölgeleriyle etkileşim gösteren karmaşık bir iklime sahiptir. Geniş ölçekli haritadan (Şekil 2.2) görüleceği üzere İstanbul, Akdeniz iklim bölgesinde yer almaktadır

• You can always ask if MGM is still a reliable source despite its age and despite it is contradicted by newer higher quality sources in WP:RSN. For now, unless you have other sources, I'm tagging the article for neutrality and outdated sources. Bogazicili (talk) 18:56, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

  See my answer at Talk:Istanbul. Also the new government source does not really support your claim, as per the assertion of a "complicated climate", which is what I've been arguing for in the first place. Uness232 (talk) 23:14, 21 July 2025 (UTC)

Warmer end of the temperate zone

In the article there is the following statement:

”Istanbul's average temperature is, by the latest normals covering 1991-2020, around 14 °C (57 °F), placing the city on the warmer end of the temperate zone.”

This sounded a little off to me, so I looked up the annual mean temperatures of some other major cities in the temperate zone.

According to the weather boxes in the article, Istanbul’s average temperature ranges 12.6 °C to 15 °C, depending on location. In comparison, New York’s 13.2 °C, Paris’s 12.8 °C, and London’s 11.7 °C look very similar. I would say Istanbul is pretty average compared to other cities in the temperate zone.

I believe the wording in this statement needs a revision. ~2025-41010-67 (talk) 08:37, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

This would be correct, as most classifications spread the temperate zone much to the north of Istanbul, but now that I look at it the wording ideally needs a source either way. Removing it for now. Uness232 (talk) 08:44, 17 December 2025 (UTC)

Sure it does, all the way up just south of the boreal zone, yet it also spans regions much further south. I think what matters is finding the actual annual mean temperature range for temperate climates to see where Istanbul’s value falls. Since the three typically temperate cities I posted have similar mean temperatures, and the fact that the tropical climate prerequisite for the coldest month mean (not even annual) is 18 °C makes me think Istanbul’s annual mean is somewhere in the middle of the range, assuming we consider the humid subtropical climate to be part of the temperate climate category under Köppen. ~2025-41010-67 (talk) 13:36, 19 December 2025 (UTC)

When writing, I was thinking of classifications which consider something like the critical temperature line in deliniating temperate from subtropical, such as Holdridge and also sort of Thornthwaite. It doesn't matter though; a statement like that isn't ideal without a source. Uness232 (talk) 13:58, 19 December 2025 (UTC)