Selected North American Cities by Annual Hours of Sunshine (place, Atlanta, Los Angeles)
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No real surprises at the top. I always thought Sac was the sunniest large metro in CA, now I see evidence of that.
Selected North American Cities by Annual Hours of Sunshine:
Phoenix 3,871.6
Las Vegas 3,825.3
Tucson 3,806.0
Sacramento 3,607.8
Fresno 3,564.2
Los Angeles 3,254.2
Miami 3,154.0
Denver 3,106.6
Oklahoma City 3,089.4
San Francisco 3,061.7
San Diego 3,054.6
Honolulu 3,035.9
Salt Lake City 3,029.4
San Juan 2,963.8
San Salvador 2,957.0
Tampa 2,926.5
Wichita 2,922.4
Memphis 2,888.3
Jacksonville 2,879.7
Dallas 2,849.7
Richmond 2,829.0
Charlotte 2,821.0
Kansas City 2,809.9
Tulsa 2,786.0
Managua 2,759.9
Atlanta 2,738.3
Minneapolis 2,710.7
Virginia Beach 2,695.1
New Orleans 2,648.9
Austin 2,643.7
Boston 2,633.6
Raleigh 2,606.3
St Louis 2,593.7
Baltimore 2,581.7
Houston 2,577.9
Mexico City 2,555.0
New York 2,534.7
Washington DC 2,527.7
Louisville 2,514.4
Nashville 2,510.1
Chicago 2,508.4
Philadelphia 2,498.4
Milwaukee 2,483.6
Indianapolis 2,440.4
Detroit 2,435.9
Calgary 2,396.3
Winnipeg 2,352.9
Edmonton 2,344.8
Portland 2,340.9
Cleveland 2,280.0
Monterrey 2,239.0
Columbus 2,182.6
Seattle 2,169.7
Toronto 2,066.4
Montreal 2,051.0
Pittsburgh 2,021.3
Panama City 1,743.5
Be careful comparing sunshine hours of US cities with other countries sunshine hours....
I has been discussed a number of times in the C-D weather forum....even a thread on it...
There are regulars there who a very knowledgeable who can give details as to why the discrepency...something about the recording euipment used, CS system (Campbell-Sokes)
and the slightly different threshold (US has a lower threshold) as to what constitues a "sunshine hour".
Comparing "border" cities is the easiest to see the difference.
For example, check sunshine hours for Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario....with Windsor indicating about
200 hours less....and it is literally across the river from
Adding about 150 to 200 annual sunshine hours to any "foreign" cities...London...Paris...Mexico City....Toronto...etc...
when comparing to a US city will be more accurate...not exact...but more in the ballpark.
Albuquerque is also curiously missing, it has one of the highest numbers at 3,415 hours of sunshine per year.
The listing from Wikipedia in the OP was posted by me in another thread four months ago where Albuquerque was also omitted despite being one of the sunniest cities in the U.S.
I'm wondering where the OP got his/her list of cities. Albuquerque is always counted among America's sunniest major cities. In the list below on Wikipedia measuring sunshine duration for cities around the world, Albuquerque has 3,415 hours of sunshine per year.
Going by that list and counting a major city as one with more than 750,000 people in its metro area, the ranking of sunniest major cities in America is as follows (cities with more than 3,000 annual hours of sunshine):
3,872 - Phoenix
3,825 - Las Vegas
3,806 - Tucson
3,763 - El Paso
3,608 - Sacramento
3,564 - Fresno
3,415 - Albuquerque
3,254 - Los Angeles
3,154 - Miami
3,107 - Denver
3,089 - Oklahoma City
3,061 - San Francisco
3,055 - San Diego
3,036 - Honolulu
3,029 - Salt Lake City
Yuma, though not a major city, actually looks to be the sunniest city in America, with over 4,000 hours of sunshine a year.
Not surprising to see some of my favorite cities near the top, Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Philadelphia is sunnier than I expected, really REALLY wanna visit Philly someday. Pittsburgh near the bottom beating Seattle? what a nightmare, people on reddit always mention how gloomy/depressing Pittsburgh is and this pretty much confirms it.
Btw, notice that Boston is the sunniest major city east of the Mississippi (Minneapolis) and north of the 36-37th parallel (VA Beach). Boston is sunnier than many people assume.
Btw, notice that Boston is the sunniest major city east of the Mississippi (Minneapolis) and north of the 36-37th parallel (VA Beach). Boston is sunnier than many people assume.
Boston sunshine hours data is from Boston Logan Airport located right on the coast...
the other main official Boston weather station is at Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory,
located more inland...it has 2236.4 average annual sunshine hours.
Boston Logan's 2633.6 average annual sunshine hours might be a bit misleading
for the majority of the Greater Boston Area.
I need some cloud coverage personally. The blinding sun of Vegas, LA, Phoenix is not my happy place.
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