[Silfen]

I'm a Seattle native and love it here. Unfortunately it is not a good place to get sunlight. We are very far north (for an American city) and overcast for most of the year. Seattle averages about 5.5 hours of sun per day. San Francisco averages nearly 8.5.

[devmunchies]

Why would you use avg sunlight per day? Thats takes the avg sunlight per year and maps it onto a daily avg, which is useless as a metric.

You want sunny days per year. Which Seattle gets less than 90. Most cities in California get over 200.

[Silfen]

That's a good point and a better metric, but it's not meaningless. Very long summer days are worth something! They're just not helpful with SAD.

[Johnny555]

Climate change is here -- summers in Seattle are much sunnier than they used to be, I think this year we had nearly 90 sunny days just in June-August, September has started off with nice sunny days as well.

Last year was unusually warm and sunny in the summer as too, though I guess a couple years isn't really a climate change, it's just unusual weather.

On the flip side, people that got along without air conditioners 5 or 10 years ago are revisiting that decision, I called around a few places to get a quote for a split unit to be installed, and they were booked up through August.

[devmunchies]

I live in Seattle too. I would say the summer is hotter, but the sun still doesn't come out regularly until July.

Not to mention the week of smoke we've had the last 2 summers. ;)

[artursapek]

Denver/Boulder area gets 300!

[sixstringtheory]

Came here to say, CO is sunny as all get out. Spent the last year in the San Luis Valley, which gets 350! Although it’s really rural, so you make some tradeoffs. I could probably live there forever :)

[crunchlibrarian]

Denver/Boulder is the sunniest spot in the USA that actually has a decent job market for everything. Even more sunny days than Los Angeles.