The 10 Cloudiest Cities in the U.S.

Key takeaways

• Holland, Syracuse, and Anchorage are the cloudiest cities in the U.S., seeing mostly gray skies for around 270 days per year.
• America’s cloudiest cities are generally clustered around the Great Lakes and Pacific Northwest, where rain and snow are common.
• The climate can affect housing markets – pandemic-era demand for sunshine and affordability pushed up home prices across the Sun Belt, pricing many buyers out.

Weather is more than just a part of daily life. A city’s climate can shape its identity and the culture of the people who live there. For example, Northwestern cities like Seattle are famous for their dreary weather, spawning a reputation for gray skies and drizzle, plus a cozy coffee-shop culture to match. On the other end of the spectrum, Southern cities like Miami are well known for their hot and sunny climates, drawing beachgoers and snowbirds year-round.

The climate can shape housing markets, too. Sunny cities surged in popularity during the pandemic, driving up home prices and pricing some people out. As a result, many buyers have turned to more affordable cities in the cloudier Midwest and Northeast, creating stiff competition for limited inventory.

So, if the climate is important to you when deciding where to live, we’re here to help. Redfin compiled a list of the cloudiest cities in the U.S. to help guide your decision. Read on to discover which places topped the list, why they’re so gloomy, why some are gaining popularity, and what to consider before making the move.

The cloudiest cities in the U.S.

Holland, Syracuse, and Anchorage are the cloudiest cities in the U.S, seeing gray skies for around 270 days per year.

Please see the methodology for how we determine a “cloudy ” day, and what percentage of possible sunshine and estimated cloud cover mean.

Anchorage feels a bit cloudier and gloomier than other cities on this list, especially when factoring in sunlight strength. If we were to measure instead by the percentage of the time sunlight reaches the ground, Anchorage would top the list, followed by Syracuse, Rochester, and Seattle.

Why are these cities so cloudy?

Nearly all of the cloudiest cities in the U.S. are located next to the Great Lakes and Pacific Ocean. These regions are cloudy for two primary reasons:

• They’re located near major bodies of water, which helps clouds form and produces frequent storm systems, especially in the fall and winter.
• They’re often in the path of cold air moving over warmer water – a pattern that leads to persistent cloud cover.

Here are a few cities and what’s behind their climates.

Anchorage spends over 65% of the year under dense cloud-cover, mostly because of atmospheric rivers and moisture from the Pacific Ocean. Surprisingly, the city sees its cloudiest skies during the summer months.

The Seattle area – sometimes cited as the cloudiest region in the country – sees a similar oceanic influence to Anchorage, but is sunnier in the summer and cloudier in the winter. We measured using recent satellite averages, which is why it differs from past data.

Cities in the Great Lakes, including Holland, Syracuse, and Rochester, are so cloudy because of their location downwind from the Great Lakes. Cooler air blowing across the milder lakes picks up moisture and forms clouds, often also also dropping rain or snow. This phenomenon is known as the lake effect. The lake effect is particularly common from late fall through early spring and can result in very heavy precipitation

Kalispell is unique because it’s situated in the Rocky Mountains, far away from a major source of water. Valleys in Western Montana, including Flathead Valley where Kalispell sits, are prone to frequent temperature inversions, which trap cool air and produce cloudy, foggy weather for days on end. This trend is much more common in the winter.

Why cloudiness matters when choosing where to live

The climate shapes everything from daily routines and outdoor activities to mood and well-being. Large cities can even create their own weather patterns – producing their own clouds or creating hotter temperatures, for example. But a city’s reputation doesn’t always reflect what living there is actually like.

Take Seattle and Miami, for example. Despite its rainy reputation, Seattle receives about as much annual precipitation as a typical American city (roughly 39 inches), and far less than New York, Boston, or Atlanta. Its gloom comes primarily from persistent cloud cover and frequent drizzle. Miami, meanwhile, sees only slightly more sunny days than the national median, despite its reputation for sunshine.

Climate can also shape housing markets. During the pandemic, many coastal home buyers and remote workers looked to Sun Belt cities in search of sunshine and affordability. This demand pushed prices up until they reached a peak and eventually began to fall as buyers became priced out. Now, some cloudier, more affordable cities in the Midwest and Northeast have gained popularity as Americans look for homes they can afford.

If you’re considering a move, you can find sunshine, climate, and other local data on Redfin.com. Simply click on any home listing to see its typical sunshine hours by season, or check out a simulated 3D model to see how sunlight reaches the property throughout the day. Redfin partners with Shadowmap, the Weather Company, and First Street (now owned by MSCI) to display this data for nearly every property in the U.S.

>> Read: Where Should I Live? 10 Questions to Help You Decide

What is the cloudiest place in the country?

The outright cloudiest place in the United States is Cold Bay, Alaska. With 304 cloudy days per year, the small Aleutian town sees nearly complete cloud cover more than 75% of daylight hours in a typical day. It recently saw its cloudiest start to summer for over 30 years.

Cold Bay was home to an air base during WWII, much of which is still standing. The region is filled with gigantic parks and wildlife preserves that are perfect for recreation and adventure.

However, the Aleutian Islands are seeing some of the most dramatic impacts from climate change, especially biodiversity loss. The Aleutians already have a very windy, wild, and highly varied climate thanks to the semi-permanent Aleutian Low, and it’s expected to become more extreme and unpredictable in the coming decades.

Methodology

Cloudiness is typically divided into three categories: partly cloudy, mostly cloudy, and cloudy (or overcast if it’s darker).

• Partly cloudy: 3/8-5/8ths of the sky is covered by clouds.
• Mostly cloudy: 5/8-7/8ths of the sky is covered by clouds.
• Cloudy: 7/8ths or more of the sky is covered by clouds.

To determine the “cloudiest” cities, we ranked U.S. metropolitan areas (“cities”) with populations over 100,000 based on their combined average annual number of “mostly cloudy” and “cloudy” days.

We also included each metropolitan area’s estimated cloud cover (%), percent of possible sunshine, and clear-sky index, though these didn’t factor into the rankings. All data was measured during daylight hours only.

• Estimated cloud cover measures the average hourly percentage of the sky that was covered by clouds from 2001–2025.
• The percent of possible sunshine is calculated by dividing the estimated minutes of recorded sunshine that reaches the ground by the total possible sunshine minutes from sunrise to sunset. We estimated this by combining NASA’s monthly clearness index and the Angstrom–Prescott relation with standard FAO-56 coefficients, combined across 12 months and weighted by daylight hours.
• The clear sky index (also known as the cloud modification factor) is calculated by dividing the strength of total sunlight that reaches the ground by the strength of sunlight that reaches the ground under a clear sky. The lower the index, the cloudier the location.

All data comes from NASA Power and covers 2001-2025, with values aggregated into monthly averages and adjusted for daylight hours only. NASA Power measures global atmospheric conditions using satellite-derived data on a 1° x 1° grid (roughly 110km x 85km). Due to its breadth, metros that were closer to each other sometimes received identical values. When this happened, we grouped them together under the largest metro.