Last year The Bulletin launched a project to solve an age-old question — does Bend really get 300 days of sunshine a year?

Each day of 2024, we recorded the cloudiness of the sky, noting a range of conditions from overcast to sunny, with varying degrees in between (mostly sunny, half sun/cloud, mostly cloudy).

Most weather experts warned us from the outset that Bend in fact experiences fewer than 300 sunny days a year, though the claim has been repeated as a marketing ploy for generations.

Halfway through the year, Bend was on pace to have 258 “sunny” days in 2024.

Now, after 12 months of looking skyward, the final results have been tallied. Not surprisingly, Bend fell short .

Although Bend did not make it to the 300 sunny days mark, the city wasn’t too far off. By our count, Bend had 211 very sunny or mostly sunny days and 111 mostly cloudy or overcast days. Bend had 44 days that fell somewhere in the middle between sunny and cloudy.

For those who take a “glass half full” approach to things, and throw the 44 “in-between-days” into the sunny column, Bend had 255 sunny days in 2024. Not too shabby.

We also concluded that getting 300 days of sun in Central Oregon is an overrated goal. Cloudy, overcast days can be a good thing. Case in point: this past December, a month that featured a lot of cloud cover, a few rainstorms and periodic snow. That temperamental weather brought massive amounts of mountain snow, resulting in the highest snow totals in North America for Mt. Bachelor ski area.

Lots of mountain snow is critical for this region, not just for skiing, but for agriculture and the health of our lakes, rivers and the Deschutes aquifer, which supplies much of our drinking water.

Another observation: Because of Bend’s frequently shifting weather patterns, it is often easier to describe the weather in segments. There were often days of heavy cloudcover in the morning, then an afternoon of sun and scattered clouds. When such days occurred we usually selected the 50/50 sun/cloud ratio box on our spreadsheet.

Here are a few other observations from throughout the year:

Bend had 22 days when snow or sleet occurred in the city. There were another 28 days when it rained. There were 152 days of clear (or almost clear) blue skies. 62 days were overcast all day long.

We also observed 12 days when the air was noticeably filled with smoke from wildfires. And there were four days when the temperature was 100 degrees or higher.

Finally, we recognize that a single year may not fully represent this city’s weather patterns and intricacies. We’ve already started a tally for 2025 to provide a second year of data.