why no sun in Sioux Falls? (living, move to, cities)

[foggyw]

One of my issues in considering a move to Sioux Falls is the amount of sunshine. I'd like a little less than Oklahoma City, but nothing too dreary, especially in winter. I compared numerous cities with Sioux Falls using wikipedia's mean monthly sunshine hours. I am amazed to find that almost nowhere in the country has less sun than Sioux Falls! All other cities in the region score quite a bit higher- Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha. Even SEATTLE shows slightly more sun than Sioux Falls! In fact, the only city i have so far located with less sun is Portland, Or.

Is this incorrect info? If not, whatever is causing this city to be such an aberration?

[Peperosso]

It does seem to get dark earlier here in the Winter months in Sioux Falls however in the Spring, Summer, and Fall I noticed nothing different than any other place I've lived, there was a lot of more ice and rain in Seattle when I lived there for 3 years in the 90's

I've only lived here in Sioux Falls for 1 year, the only weather issues I've had living here is the wind. There wasn't a lot of snow this winter and it was pretty mild but the wind is what make it worse on most days.

[24522]

Originally Posted by foggyw

One of my issues in considering a move to Sioux Falls is the amount of sunshine. I'd like a little less than Oklahoma City, but nothing too dreary, especially in winter. I compared numerous cities with Sioux Falls using wikipedia's mean monthly sunshine hours. I am amazed to find that almost nowhere in the country has less sun than Sioux Falls! All other cities in the region score quite a bit higher- Minneapolis, Des Moines, Omaha. Even SEATTLE shows slightly more sun than Sioux Falls! In fact, the only city i have so far located with less sun is Portland, Or.

Is this incorrect info? If not, whatever is causing this city to be such an aberration?

Interesting, I never noticed. I do question the data though. For example, Minneapolis shows over 350 hours of sunshine in July. That's an average of over 11 hours a day, every day, yet they also average 10 days where precipitation is measured. Possible I suppose, but it would seem to indicate that the only time it is cloudy there is when it's raining. Maybe some of these cities use the "Colorado system" for measuring sun - if the sun shines even for a minute, it's considered one of the over 300 days of sunshine a year there.
Sioux Falls does experience a lot of "partly cloudy" days throughout the year. Lots of high thin clouds overhead that prevent the sun from shining fully through constantly. Now that I think about it, there are a lot of days where it's overcast, but most of those days aren't the dark, dreary type of light you get in say Portland.