The sunniest U.S. cities: Ranked by share of clear-sky sunshine that reaches the ground, NASA POWER, 2001-2020

Which U.S. cities are the sunniest?

The first ten: Yuma, AZ (94%), Lake Havasu City, AZ (93%), Maricopa, AZ (92%), Phoenix, AZ (92%), Hesperia, CA (92%), Ontario, CA (92%), Pomona, CA (92%), Redlands, CA (92%), Victorville, CA (92%) and Casa Grande, AZ (92%). At the other end of the list is Anchorage, AK (66%).

Method: each place is measured at the NOAA station that keeps its climate record (named in the table); "=" marks a tie at the shown precision. The ranking compares places of 50,000 or more people so that small towns with a single remote station do not lead the list; every other place's figure is on its own page. The sunshine figure is the share of the sunlight that would reach the ground under clear skies that does reach it through the clouds, from NASA's satellite-based solar climatology (2001-2020) for the 1-degree cell around the station; it sets aside latitude, so a northern city with clear skies can rank above a southern city with frequent cloud. It is not NOAA's old percent of possible sunshine, a series that ended decades ago. The hourly sky reports on each place page count only cloud below about 12,000 feet.

Other rankings

• The hottest U.S. citiesnormal annual mean temperature
• The coldest U.S. citiesnormal annual mean temperature
• The hottest summers in U.S. citiesnormal July high
• The mildest summers in U.S. citiesnormal July high
• The warmest winters in U.S. citiesnormal January low
• The coldest winters in U.S. citiesnormal January low