Cloudy weather in Austin? (Howe, Vega: home, live, law)

[The beave]

We are considering a move to Austin however we have a question about the weather.

My wife has a condition called SAD. SAD is seasonal affective disorder and is characterized by physical and emotional conditions brought on by a lack of sunlight. Lack of sunlight is not a problem here in Las Vegas NV.

Obviously Austin has more rainfall than Las Vegas. My question is, does Austin have extended periods (several days to a week) of overcast, or are storms characterized by clouds with intermittent sunshine?

Thanks for your help!

[gigi927]

Austin is supposed to average 300 days of sunshine each year with rainfall of 30 to 32 inches.

That being said, we just came out of a front where I think we went several days without sunshine - I think it was at least 5 days.

[Trainwreck20]

My sister in law has SAD and lives in MN, so she has a challenge. She rents a 'light box' (actually has a prescription) which seems to help.

Anyway, we rarely have extended cloudy periods, but they do occur. The rain here is actully about the same (in inches) as that in Seattle. The difference is it comes down in a hurry! It is not unusual to get 2-3 inches in a day, and once or twice a year we seem to get a 5-6+ inch 24 hour period. That leaves lots of sun in between. Cloudy w/o rain is uncommon.

[jread]

I live for overcast weather, so this is something I pay special attention to. I'd have to say that Austin is hardly ever cloudy, and when it is, it doesn't last very long. You will need sun glasses 99% of the time.

[caendaniels]

Winter has the most chance of anything close to being considered "overcast". By winter I mean a Texas winter, bout six weeks total. This year there was a 4-5 day of cloudiness. It was still bright outside. That is not ever year. It also snowed this year, when was the last time it did that?

[Tama]

Probably you could get real data from the home page of city-data---I was in Austin from Dec. to Oct. one year and I felt like there was constant cloudiness. I remember it surprised me. Some sun but always seemed to be interspersed with clouds. I couldn't wait to leave because of it. However, I would check the longterm data--my year could have been a fluke.