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According to every source of information I've seen, Yuma's sun hours are the highest sunshine statistics for any weather station in the world and certainly the sunniest town, even if they are a bit overstated relative to other countries. There are likely areas in the world, especially parts of the Sahara, that do have more sunshine than Yuma, but I've never heard of any reliable statistics from those uninhabited regions in the Sahara. I'd genuinely like to see them.
Besides, Yuma is a far more viable move for the OP than some uninhabited location in the Sahara.
I wasn't considering just towns. While the following won't directly translate to sunshine quantities, the map of annual direct solar irradiance is a good indicator of there being a large region in northern Africa comparable to the one in the US. If I find some more explicit data eventually I'll report back.
Has there been any effort to quantify the sunshine difference between the immediate coast of California and further inland? Annecdotally there would seem to be a substantial difference in May and June.
Has there been any effort to quantify the sunshine difference between the immediate coast of California and further inland? Annecdotally there would seem to be a substantial difference in May and June.
I haven't seen numbers for locations "just" inland from the coast. However the following (% duration)
show a broader picture (May, June, annual avg):
San Diego 59 58 68
Los Angeles 66 65 73
Fresno 90 95 79
Has there been any effort to quantify the sunshine difference between the immediate coast of California and further inland? Annecdotally there would seem to be a substantial difference in May and June.
Not sunshine, but compare the number of sunny/partly cloudy/cloudy days of Los Angeles Airport (right by the coast) with Los Angeles C.O. (Inland, not sure of exact location).
I wasn't considering just towns. While the following won't directly translate to sunshine quantities, the map of annual direct solar irradiance is a good indicator of there being a large region in northern Africa comparable to the one in the US. If I find some more explicit data eventually I'll report back.
All USA sunshine data from the old system need to be adjusted downward to compare to the rest of the world. Your link of course would not need adjustment. But I think the larger myth is how some people in the rest of the world think many places in the US are so sunny. Not really true unless you compare apples to apples.
Readers should note that claims by Yuma to be "sunniest in the world" need some consideration. Solar calculations mentioned in an earlier thread showed it to have a somewhat lower value, and international comparisons are tricky. Older texts claimed parts of the eastern Sahara had 97% of the possible sunshine, putting it ahead of the likes of Yuma.
The US authorities don't take sunshine measurement very seriously (Blue Hill and the associated commentary excepted obviously). I would suggest international readers take 200-300 hours off quoted US values if any attempt at a comparison is to be made.
In this case of course the OP is already in the US and obviously likes very high sunshine tallies.
Excellent point here regarding the international comparability of US sunshine data. Besides the fact that many stations have stopped recording sunshine data 30-40 years ago now, the methods and instruments for quantifying sunshine have also changed. As discussed in previous threads, these discrepancies can be most easily seen when comparing stations that are only a few dozen kilometers apart on the US-Canadian border, but yield suspiciously large differences in sunshine amounts. Quite often the differences can be as much as 200-300 hours, so RWood's suggestion of subtracting about 200 or so hours from US data sounds about right. It's important to bear this in mind when people vote in city/climate contests, where sunshine is a key factor for many.
Now back to the OP's topic, I don't think "sunny southern California" is in itself a myth, meaning I don't think this assertion is false, especially if in light of Rwood's point, we restrict comparisons to within the US. Even if we take off 200 hours, most places in southern California have at least 2800 hours. It may not be the sunniest, but it is a very sunny region compared to many other places in the US.
The OP is looking for a place that has sunny days year round and also described the cloud cover that the Los Angeles often experiences.
Pasadena experiences the same thing - it is in the Los Angeles basin.
The OP lives right on the beach, wouldn't that have more clouds than Pasadena?
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