Most weather forecasters don't want to get drawn into such an argument of semantics, so when it comes to quantifying the coverage of the sky by clouds, they rely on a specific "pie-chart" system that leaves little room for debate (see table below). With this usage, a partly sunny day is actually cloudier than a partly cloudy day. Some folks use "partly sunny" to emphasize that there will be a bit more clouds than sun, and use "partly cloudy" to emphasize that there will be a bit more sun than clouds. But, in practice, some forecasters use these terms differently because the word "partly" is somewhat vague, so it's not clear cut. Let me start with the age old question: "Which phrase do you think describes a cloudier sky? Partly sunny or partly cloudy?" The National Weather Service defines partly sunny and partly cloudy as essentially the same, with the caveat that we wouldn't use "partly sunny" at night, of course. Sky Coverage: Sky coverage simply describes the portion of the sky covered by clouds. As I did with temperature, dew point, visibility, and present weather, I'll briefly describe each variable and its common units of measurement (if applicable), and then describe how to interpret it on a station model. I've outlined the part of the station model that includes this information in the sample on the right, but note that the station model also includes information about air pressure, which we'll mostly ignore for now and come back to later on. We're going to continue tackling the information contained in the station model, and now we're going to turn our attention to cloud coverage and wind direction and speed.
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