Not all that surprising when you consider that New York is a tiny bit more to the south than Rome. Draw a horizontal line through Italy, Spain and New York and you'll find similar amounts of sunshine. Draw a line through Scotland and see where you would end up in Canada, it's probably going to be even more cold and miserable there than in Scotland ;)

The scale is throwing me. Differences of:

400

200

200

500

500

500

500

Please don't post images like this, I'll end up with fellow Americans telling people in Chicago to flee north to Italy before you know it.

Well, then again maybe they won't know what Italy looks like

Can someone ELI5 why it varies vertically across Scandinavia?

I always thought england was pacific north west levels of dreary, didn't know it was that bad. How are the English not more depressed?

Nice, but umm, where's the rest of us?

The interesting one in the US would be Alaska, since the amount of sunshine in that state alone varies wildly.

What is your source of data, honored dude? Also, I can see why so many of my brothers by another mother in the EU rent an RV and cruise through my town all summer. Don't forget to stop and shop! (RV= caravan, I think )

The blob across the border between England and Scotland explains so much as to why I get twin peaks vibes from Dumfries and Galloway.

Bullshit, there is no way England gets that much sun ..

is that dark spot in Northern California Redding? I we account for smoke cover that part of the valley should have a ~ 2 weeks less sunshine than the mountains around it.

Thr US one is what you get when you spill a bottle of ketchup on the corner of a white duvet you just washed.

Is the unmarked white space north of the U.S. , and between it and Europe, Mexico, or Canada? I get those two confused

i'm confused, why does the swedish highlands magically have less sunlight hours? surely they'd have more

and there's a splotch of higher sun hours too, which looks to be lake Vänern, but if big lakes get more sunlight then why not Vättern or Mälaren too?

@The_Picard_Maneuver I live near Denver and can confirm that we get a lot of sun. We got solar panels last year and are now in the perverse position of using the power of the sun to counteract the power of the sun on hot summer days.

Really sucks that there's no sun at all here in Canada :(