Sunniest US Cities

The major cities in United States with the most sun year round are Phoenix and Las Vegas. Both are sunny for 85 percent of the time between sunrise and sunset, amounting to over 3800 hours a year.

It gets even sunnier during July and August in Sacramento, California, where the sun shines 96% of the time and all but nine days in those two months have mainly clear skies. During winter though, clouds move in and Sacramento sees sun for less than half of the daylight hours.

Meanwhile on the California coast, the pattern reverses. San Diego, another of the top-ranking US cities for sunshine, gets more sun in winter than in summer.

The major cities included in the weather rankings represent the metropolitan areas in the United States with over one million people in 2010.

Average annual sunshine in the sunniest major US cities.

City	% Sunshine	Hours of Sun	Clear Days
Phoenix, Arizona	85	3872	211
Las Vegas, Nevada	85	3825	210
Sacramento, California	78	3608	188
Los Angeles, California	73	–	147
Miami, Florida	70	3154	74
Denver, Colorado	69	3107	115
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma	68	3089	139
San Diego, California	68	3055	146
Salt Lake City, Utah	66	3029	125
San Francisco, California	66	–	160
Tampa, Florida	66	2927	101

% sunshine is the percentage of time between sunrise and sunset that sun reaches the earth's surface.
Clear days is the number days a year when clouds cover less than one-third of the sky on average.