Sunniest Cities in Canada

Prairie cities top the list of Canada's sunniest cities.

Not every weather station keeps track of when the sun shines. Among the cities with sunshine records, Calgary gets the most sun, with an average of 2405 hours a year, spread over 333 days.

Calgary isn't far from Canada's sunniest spot, Manyberries, in the southeast corner of Alberta. The hamlet averages 2567 hours of sun a year, accounting for 55% of its daylight.

Winnipeg, Regina and Saskatoon are close behind Calgary, all topping 2300 hours of sunshine annually. For these prairie cities, the sun shines during at least half the daylight hours.

Meanwhile, the cloudiest cities are scattered along the east and west coasts and in central Canada. St. John's, Newfoundland stands out as Canada's large city with the least sun. It gets just over 1500 hours a year, making up one-third of daylight hours.

Still, St. John's is much sunnier than one of Canada's cloudiest places, Stewart, a coastal town in northern British Columbia. Stewart receives only 982 hours of sun a year on average, scattered over 228 days. Clouds block the sun in Stewart for 80% of the time.

Average annual sunshine in major Canadian cities.

City	Hours	% Daylight	Days
Calgary	2405	53	333
Winnipeg	2372	51	318
Regina	2338	50	321
Saskatoon	2329	50	320
Edmonton	2299	49	321
Victoria	2193	46	317
Hamilton	2088	45	302
Ottawa	2061	45	303
Toronto	2038	44	303
Montreal	2029	44	304
Kingston	1992	43	299
Vancouver	1928	40	289
Quebec	1905	41	291
London	1800	38	288
St. John's	1512	33	270

Hours = average number of hours of bright sunshine a year.
% Daylight = percentage of daylight hours that are sunny.
Days = average number of days a year with some bright sunshine.