New York or Sydney: which climate?
New York (United States) has a hot-summer humid continental climate, whereas Sydney (Australia) has a temperate oceanic climate, according to the Köppen-Geiger classification.
The values compared here are normals computed over 86 complete calendar years, from 1940 to 2025, using ERA5 reanalysis data from the Copernicus programme. The same method and the same period apply to New York and to Sydney.
Sydney is warmer than New York by 5.6 °C in annual average: 17.7 °C against 12.1 °C.
New York gets more rain than Sydney: 1,098 mm per year against 892 mm.
Sydney gets 10.2 hours of sunshine per day on average, against 8.8 hours in New York.
New York has warmed by +1.7 °C between 1940 and 2025, against +1.2 °C in Sydney. New York is therefore warming faster than Sydney. Both trends are statistically significant.
New York averages 20 hot days (≥ 30 °C) and 75 frost days per year; Sydney averages 2 and 0.
Data from ERA5 reanalysis (Copernicus Climate Change Service), redistributed under a CC-BY 4.0 licence. Normals are recomputed whenever the archive is updated.
| Indicator | New York | Sydney | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mean daily temperature | 12.1 °C | 17.7 °C | +5.6 °C |
| Average daily high | 15.7 °C | 20.1 °C | +4.4 °C |
| Average daily low | 8.6 °C | 15.5 °C | +6.9 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,098 mm | 892 mm | -206 mm |
| Sunshine / day | 8.8 h | 10.2 h | +1.4 h |
| Hot days (≥ 30 °C) | 20 d/yr | 2 d/yr | -18 d/yr |
| Frost days (< 0 °C) | 75 d/yr | 0 d/yr | -75 d/yr |
| Rainy days (≥ 1 mm) | 118 d/yr | 116 d/yr | negligible |
| Mean relative humidity | 71 % | 72 % | negligible |
| Average peak wind | 17.4 km/h | 25.9 km/h | +8.5 km/h |
A difference is only reported when it exceeds the resolution of the data. ERA5 is a reanalysis on a grid of about 31 km: two nearby cities often fall in the same cell, and below half a degree you are reading the grid, not the climate.