Does Denver have lots of days when the sky is clear of clouds? (Pueblo: live, county)

[poibon77]

So I found some data that indicates Denver has relatively few totally clear days but lots of days that are partly sunny/partly cloudy.

[otowi]

Depends on your definition of partly cloudy. If you mean never a single cloud in the sky out to the farthest horizon even for an hour of the day, yes that is indeed pretty uncommon. But there are plenty of days when the sky is mostly clear or has more sky than cloud.

[Mike from back east]

It is mostly sunny in the region all year long. The rule of thumb is 300 days of sunshine. Having lived 11 years in the region I can count on my two hands the number of days each year that are solid overcast. Most days are 90% wide open skies with a few puffy clouds. IMO that counts as a "sunny" day. Winters are not the gray days of the upper midwest or pacific northwest.

[pikabike]

Originally Posted by otowi

Depends on your definition of partly cloudy. If you mean never a single cloud in the sky out to the farthest horizon even for an hour of the day, yes that is indeed pretty uncommon. But there are plenty of days when the sky is mostly clear or has more sky than cloud.

Good summary.

In summer, expect almost daily afternoon thundershowers in some areas.

[poibon77]

Originally Posted by otowi

Depends on your definition of partly cloudy. If you mean never a single cloud in the sky out to the farthest horizon even for an hour of the day, yes that is indeed pretty uncommon. But there are plenty of days when the sky is mostly clear or has more sky than cloud.

Well that's not how I define it. But I was curious to know how often the sky was totally clear of clouds, which you've sorta already mentioned. I've also heard they get relatively few of totally clear days but a whole lot of days where the sun comes out for least an hour.

[MN_Ski]

There is typically cloud cover from 3pm-8pm for 5 or 6 months a year from afternoon thunderstorms. But I wouldn't call it overcast, just very cloudy with scattered storms.

Mornings are always clear though. I can only remember like 3 or 4 mornings in the last 4 months were it wasn't completely sunny.

[Josseppie]

Not Denver but one year I counted all the cloudy days in Pueblo as i wanted to find out how many we had. That year Pueblo had 326 sunny days or 39 cloudy days.

[Katarina Witt]

Clear days in Denver: Mean Number of Clear Days - Western Regional Climate Center (WRCC)
115. September and October have the most, 13.

Definition of "clear" day: 1/8 sky or less has opaque cloud cover.
https://www.weather.gov/bgm/forecast_terms

Percent of possible sunshine in Denver: 69%
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/...pctposrank.txt

Sunny to partly sunny days: 245
https://www.currentresults.com/Weath...f-sunshine.php

In my personal experience, days when the sun doesn't come out at all are very few.

[Hschlick84]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

Not Denver but one year I counted all the cloudy days in Pueblo as i wanted to find out how many we had. That year Pueblo had 326 sunny days or 39 cloudy days.

Partly cloudy days doesn't count as sunny days. Come to Vegas or Phoenix, we have actual clear days. Where I live currently in Yavapai county, the longest we had sunny days without clouds was 2 weeks straight in June, it was nice. When I lived up in Denver, you hardly ever have more than 2 days straight of clear days without afternoon thunderstorms.

[Josseppie]

Originally Posted by Hschlick84

Partly cloudy days doesn't count as sunny days. Come to Vegas or Phoenix, we have actual clear days. Where I live currently in Yavapai county, the longest we had sunny days without clouds was 2 weeks straight in June, it was nice. When I lived up in Denver, you hardly ever have more than 2 days straight of clear days without afternoon thunderstorms.

I took all that into consideration. Pueblo sits at the bottom of a valley, much like Palm Springs, so we get a lot more sunny days then the rest of the state.