Hottest, Healthiest and Hippie place in OR??

[NW Crow]

SW Oregon gets more sunny days than NW Oregon but fairly close to the coast it is still has less mostly sunny or better days than national average. Medford 195 / yr. National average 205. Klamath Falls probably leads state at 218.

The UV in SW Oregon is well below national average. To me, that is more good than bad. I burn easily and find that annoying.

[PNW-type-gal]

But, since the most of the Willamette Valley gets 140-150 days of sun (and less at the coast) that is a pretty significant difference. Also compare rain amounts, over 40" to under 18". Medford is just slightly less sunny on average than the US average, compared to most of Western Oregon, which is significantly less sunny. (The difference, of course, is that most US cities have their rain spread around the year a little more, rather than concentrated in one season.)

That is also using the Western Climate Center Data. If you want to go by other sources, there are more days listed as "sunny" because the metric changes. The official weather sites use the definition of % of cloud cover (in eights) on average for the entire day.
Cloudy = 6/8 to 8/8 of the sky is covered in clouds, on average, for the entire day.
Sunny = 6/8 to 8/8 of the sky is clear of clouds, on average, for the entire day.

The percentages between there can be called partly cloudy OR partly sunny, depending on which way the trend went.

So what some sites - like the Bend Chamber of Commerce - do is change the definition. Instead of using the average of the entire day, they sort of cherry-pick the definition. Was there a part of the day when, at some point, the sun was shining? Well then, that is a sunny day. Even if, on average, it was a cloudy day.

For instance, we've had fairly light cloud but extensive cloud cover so far today. But, when I was out at the park this morning (from about 7:30 to 11:00), we had at least an hour when we were playing pickleball in the sun, even if the sky is mostly cloudy. So by the NWS definition, this morning would be mostly cloudy, but by the optimist definition it was a sunny morning.

But the Rogue Valley still has the Western Oregon cool wet winter, it's just a little more sunny and less wet than the Willamette Valley. Someone looking for warm sunny weather year-round would not find it here. The Medford, summer, however, is much hotter than anywhere else in Western Oregon, averaging 10-12 days over 100 in the summer and the average high temp in July is 92°.


Having lived in Portland, rural Klamath County and Medford, the UV in Klamath is bad mostly because of the elevation - we lived at 4,400 feet and on a sunny cool day could get almost as much solar radiation for our solar panels as the equator gets - the combination of high elevation and sun is very bad for that. Also, I got tired of the lack of spring weather (it's more like summer, fall, winter-winter-winter summer) and the brown. I lived too long in green and missed it, and moved over the mountains to get it back.

[NW Crow]

The amount of sunshine desired or needed will vary by person (and season).

Yes, the data needs to be used carefully and some are not careful or misleading.

There are indeed a set of factors and situations to consider and it is not really adequately addressed by one number. But it depends how deep a person wants to go on the subject.

The OP will have to decide if 195 "sunny days" or whatever number is enough, enough information and / or enough sun. Or if they want to dig for more of details about winter / summer conditions, hours of sun, UV, etc. and seek more understanding of how those details impact them and their choice. I think it is worth digging into before moving.