Is Columbus as cloudy as Youngstown? (Cleveland, Cincinnati: home, living in, vs)

[dolcegirl907]

Hi All,

I currently live in Youngstown and have to get out of here before it sucks the life out of me. I'm considering a few different places and Columbus is one of them - it's a great city and I think it would be a good fit for me.

I love the seasons in Ohio, can even deal with the cold weather, I just can't handle the lack of sunshine anymore. Is this just a lake-effect cloud-cover thing here in Y-town, or do you guys go for long periods of time without seeing the big yellow bright thing too?

Thanks guys!

[paintballer1708]

^ It is so much better. You wouldnt think so either only traveling about 3 hours SW of Youngstown. Its weird how you can go only a few hours away from one place and the weather can be very different. Columbus has much more sunnier days than Youngstown. Youngstown is the 5th most cloudy metro in the U.S., after places like Flint, MI, Seattle, WA, Detroit, MI, Milwaukee, and Fargo, ND. Columbus is also much better on the whole snow thing too.

[OneWayOut]

^Just curious.... where do you get all these crazy statistics... you seem to have one for everything... I have searched all over the net and cannot seem to find this one.. I would like to see the cloudy days vs sunny days for all the cities in the US.

BTW, I would estimate about 275 cloudy days in Toledo per year. We are close to Detroit. It has been cloudy here for at least a week straight, with only a few days here and there of sunshine over the past month.

[RichS]

Columbus was a reasonably sunny place this year. Last year, didn't seem quite so sunny.

I have no technical basis for this hypothesis, but I sincerely believe there is a swath through the northern section of Ohio that is a just a magnet for bad/gloomy weather.

I travel to Cleveland to see family pretty often. It is now the running joke with my wife that when we get to Mansfield, we are going to hit bad or gloomy weather. I can't explain it... but more times than not it will be sunny in Cleveland, sunny in Columbus... but raining/snowing/sleeting in Mansfield!! It is so frequent a phenomenon, that I actually get a feeling of "relief" once I get past Mansfield on the way home in the wintertime.

It's probably just all in my head... and bad timing. But if anyone has any data to support this phenomenon... I'd be interested in learning about it. If nothing else, it would assure me that the Mansfield Weather-gods don't hate me !!

[pasharon]

the problem for more clouds in ne ohio is simple. its lake erie.thats why ne ohio especially in ashtabula and the eastern cleveland suburbs are very hard hit by snow and called the snow belt.in fall and spring theres more clouds in ne ohio if the wind is coming in from the north or northwest.the wind blowing over cool water makes clouds.

[Subway]

dolcegirl,

Columbus isn't quite as cloudy as Youngstown, but the difference isn't that large. Whereas Youngstown averages 205 cloudy days per year, Columbus averages 190. The biggest weather difference between the two cities is snowfall - Columbus only gets half as much as Youngstown.

Unfortunately, if sunshine is important to you, I honestly don't think you would be happy anywhere in Ohio. While it is generally sunnier the further west and south you go in the state, the differences are not all that profound. This link will be quite helpful to you: http://www.weathertoday.net/weatherf...loudy_desc.php. It lists cities nationwide from cloudiest to least cloudiest based on the average number of cloudy days per year. Here is how the Ohio cities stack up:

Youngstown - 205
Cleveland - 202
Akron - 198
Mansfield - 191
Columbus - 190
Dayton - 188
Cincinnati - 186
Toledo - 185.

In case you want to look at it from another perspective, the following link lists cities from sunniest to least sunniest based on the average number of sunny days per year: http://www.weathertoday.net/weatherf..._city_desc.php. Here is how the Ohio cities stack up:

Cincinnati - 81
Dayton - 77
Mansfield - 73
Toledo - 73
Columbus - 72
Akron - 68
Cleveland - 66
Youngstown - 63.

Obviously, the reason that the numbers of cloudy and sunny days for each place do not add up to 365 is that the remaining days are partly cloudy.

[travelin]

I'm from Dayton, which is on the southwest end of Ohio and I still find it pretty darn gloomy and depressing.

If you want sunshine anywhere in the Midwest, especially Ohio is a bad choice. Check out the southwest. Places like Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Southern Colorado, So Cal if you like nice weather. Essentially the inverse of weather in Ohio.

Also from living in the southwest there is a different perception of the weather that it's accurately portrayed in the stats. There is less haze (unless you live in LA), thus the sky actually looks blue, not washed out blue. Also, a cloudy in the southwest would probably be considered only partly cloudy in the Ohio due to the different perception of weather. Also, it does rain at times, but never the dreary gray drizzle for a week strait the seems all to common in Ohio. Finally you have mountains instead of corn fields the dot the landscape.

[dolcegirl907]

Thanks for all the insight guys. You've been really helpful and I appreciate it. Good info on here, and lots of things to think about.

Thanks!

[vader]

Wow, its pretty sad when Toledo is the least cloudiest...I thought we were the overcast capital of the world...

(Although I will admit this year actually hasnt been so bad)

[sloka]

I call Mansfield the "twilight zone" of Ohio weather!