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Hey guys, I'm an American boy living in Texas right now with my wife and 1st son. We are considering Ottawa as a future destination on the distant horizon, but I have Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD, or the Winter Blues). I left Lansing, Michigan because it's one of the cloudiest places on earth and I couldn't handle that much gray anymore. I've ton a little research and some sites I'm seeing say that Ottawa has 300+ days of sunshine, which I find hard to believe because that's how it is in Texas and it never snows here.
Can anyone on this board fill me in on the real story? How much sun do y'all have? How do you think someone with Seasonal Affective Disorder would do in that climate, etc.?
I think the 300 is days with at least some bright sunshine.
Overall, Ottawa is not bad for sunshine for its location and climate, but it is not really any sunnier than Michigan: I checked Lansing and it gets about 2300 hours of sun a year. Ottawa gets 2100. Most of Texas gets 2600.
Moving to Ottawa is going to entail enduring winter where most of your time will be spent indoors.If you are spending a good part of 4-5 months a year indoors what difference does it make if the sun is shining or not?
Just because it snows doesn't mean it's cloudy all of the time... I really don't understand where people get this from. The reason Lansing is so cloudy is because of the Great Lakes... and Ottawa isn't downwind of them (the typical wind over the great lakes in winter is from the NW/WNW/W). In fact, some of the sunnier places in this country includes eastern CO, western Nebraska, SD/ND, and Montana. The sunniest places in Canada are Alberta, E BC, some places in SK, and places in the far north (the further north you go, the more you get towards a desert).
Entirely agree with the preceeding post. More accurate would be 300 days of clouds.
Ottawa is NOT the place to be if you're highly affected by bad weather.
If you're really serious about going there, do what I'd suggest about all the northern states/provinces-have some 300W halogen lamps available in most rooms, which do a decent job of simulating sunlight. Use em.
Reliance on data that may or may not be accurate won't cut it. Numbers can deceive, and can vary depending on source and how they qualify definitions of what comprises a sunny, partially sunny, partially cloudy day, etc.
Ottawa's weather isn't very nice much of the year. Period.
Also known to some as one of if not the coldest capital city in the world. One of the world's capitals when it comes to dreary, grey days. The bulk of recent 4-5 summers, long awaited after endless winters, lost to terrible weather excepting 2011 and part of 2010.
Wow, that was a real shocker for me, Victoria BC has more sunshine hours than Toronto??? I've lived both places and I would have sworn Toronto had double the sunshine hours of Victoria. I guess it's all about how it's dispersed.
Just goes to show you how statistics can't account for real living! I would pick TO weather any day after spending 4 years in Victoria.
Hey if you want to take your personal experience of 4 years over 30 years of actual data collected by Environment Canada, have at 'er.
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