Hello All,

I am looking to find out what parts of Switzerland have the least amount of cloud cover on average. I love it when it's clear outside, beautiful blue sky and at night time when you can gaze at the stars. I have seen many pictures of Switzerland, the German speaking areas, the Italian and French and more then 50% of the pictures I have seen of the German and French areas they are cloudy and dim where as the Italian area is has mostly clear blue skies.

What are your thoughts? Any particular area of the French or German speaking areas that have less cloud cover then others. Maybe the pictures I looked at are not telling the overall truth? On average how many clear blue sky days are there in Zurich (out of the 365 days)

Thanks

Take a look at Valais. Sunniest canton in Switzerland I believe.

Sierre (Valais) claims to be the sunniest city in Switzerland. I couldn't find a number to support this. The area seems to average about 2000h of sunshine a year. Locarno is said to have 2300h of sunshine a year.

Here are some numbers I've found on various webpages. The problem is some of them might be scientific averages and other optimistic values published by tourist offices although these seem fairly plausible:

Glarus 1265
Zürich 1482
Stäfa (Zürich): 1500
Hallau (Schaffhausen) 1578
Basel 1700
La Chaux-de-Fonds 1715
Satigny (Geneva) 1760
Celerina (St.Moritz) 1800
Sedrun 1800
Leysin (Valais) 1900
Lugano 1994
Locarno-Monti 2164

So Locarno has probably the best climate in Switzerland.

It doesn't have the best air quality though so I would rather consider a place like Crans-Montana/Valais for clear skies.

Also there are quite a few vineyards in Zurich region especially along lake Zurich and Rhine so weather here can't really be that bad.

Living ~25 Km north west of Zurich, I have often left home in sunshine to find fog, mist or rain in Zurich. The lake definitely has an effect on the local climate.

Basel is supposed to yet better in this respect, as the figures above indicate.

Best to stay 20 kms from any body of water (lakes) and if possible get above the clouds. Like here
But check out the web cams first. I believe the last lift closes in the early evening, so best bring a tent if you wish to see the stars.

According to this website, Lausanne is pretty high on the list with 1907 hours of sun per year .

As for the comment about staying away from the lakes to ensure more sunshine, that may be true in northern Switzerland, but it certainly doesn't apply everywhere. In Vaud, the areas along the shore of Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) certainly get more sun than other areas, as shown by the stats in the site I linked to above, and based on my personal observations. In addition, Locarno is one of the sunniest places in Switzerland, and that is also right on a large lake.

Another good indicator of where there are many hours of sun is where grapes and other fruits are grown. For info on grape-growing regions, see wine.ch.

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Cycling in Switzerland | Photo blog (mostly travel pics from Switzerland)

Wow, You must be lucky. Living close to lake Murten, we have 370 days of fog. Drive into Bern or Fribourg, and it is cloud free.
It seems drving in the area of lake Neuchatel and Biel are the same.
Wind currents must be a huge factor since your lake is bigger than ours leaving the idea of even more fog.

I live in the Jura and we usually have a great big blue sky with fluffy white clouds.

Unfortunately, today is not one of those days...
Maybe, I need to sing rain, rain, go a way come back another day...

I wanted to walk outside today!!!!

No don't sing that ... it will come down here to us and cause even more coverage...

Valais/Wallis is the sunniest canton in CH so anywhere around Sion, Sierre, Brig or Visp will get lots of sun.

The Southern part of Graubunden and Ticino are also both very sunny.

On top of that there are many places all over the country that enjoy sunny micro-climates because of their geopgraphical position. Generally, whether in CH can vary widely from one valley to the next.

Not sure if this particular piece of Swiss territory exists still. If it does, though, I'm sure the weather must be quite nice:

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive...CF&oref=slogin

Niesen to Interlaken in May, Belpberg in December, Furka surprises anytime.

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Valais is awesome for sunny/dry climate. If you're planning to live there though bear in mind that the north end of the canton between Brig and Sierre is craggy, rocky and a bit bleak (at least in my opinion) and a long haul to a major city/international airport. The further into the Valais you go away from Montreux the fewer the expats if that is important to you. The southern end of the canton (between Sion and Martigny) is prettier with loads of fruit trees and vineyards and closer to Montreux, Lausanne and Geneva. Be warned that there is a major Swiss airforce base at Sion so the flight path which runs along the Valais does cause enough disturbance that there are local efforts to limit flights. A good comprise is the Vaud/Valais border between Montreux and St. Maurice.

The harsh reality is that the sun only shines around 30% of the time in Zurich (ca. 1400h a year) - this is less than any place in North America. So you better be prepared for lots of grey weather when moving here.... Zurich might have a number of advantages, but climate definitely is not one of them (on average, it's colder than Stockholm and has more rain than London).

Very interesting thread. I am all about the sunshine. Thanks!

Stockholm: ø 6.6°C
Zurich: ø 7.8°C

Zurich has more rain than London but it rains more often in London (ca. 200 vs 160 days/year)

Are you missing the other side of the alps?

I don't think you need to worry much this year. I've read somewhere that it's going to be a very warm and sunny summer in Switzerland. And also lest year was not so bad.
But i believe that Lugano is the sunniest, whenever i'm there it's sunny!

I discovered that Chur is quite often fog free, and it's known by Rega (Swiss emergency transport service) for that feature.

I discovered this when my 9 year old son had a ski accident (snapped femur on account of landing a leg on top of a ski edge) on top of the Gamserrug near Wildhaus. As we were at 2000m, taking him down by sled would have been raw agony so we called in Rega.

At 2000m we were above the fog, but the heli had to fly round because they cannot ascend/descend through clouds for safety reasons, and after pickup we were routed to Chur - nearby Gems was below that same cloud cover. The pilot told us that happened very often with fog, Chur was always clear (I guess that's why the Chur Kantonal hospital sports TWO heli pads). Having said that, he found a gap before Chur and he took one mother of a drop at full speed to get through. I guess slowing down isn't really a habit for an emergency pilot :-).

So, Chur. Maybe not the place to live, but it's fog free by reputation :-).

Incidentally, it was an heartening discovery to find that the Swiss have found a way to combine a staggering level of professionalism with heartfelt care. They were fast, efficient but also very nice - which did more to calm down a scared child than the morphine they gave him. Respect.

For the record, I live in Zürich and I have found it quite sunny compared to London (he says, looking at reports promising snow)..

Knonaueramt's (located in the State of Zurich) logo is "Auf der Sonnenseite" which translates to "On the sunny side".



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Yes, it actually is the sunniest. I've in Lugano right since yesterday (Easter weekend) and the weather is beautiful. Very nice to sit in the sun wearing a t-shirt while you know that its snowing in Zurich....

Lugano has a around 50% more sunshine per year than Zurich + its quite a bit warmer. Probably the best place to live in CH - just a bit far away from any larger commercial center which makes finding jobs quite difficult.