LA Is Pleasant Place In USA, Measured By Number of Nice Days

Los Angeles is now officially what everyone who has spent any time in the city already knew it was — the most pleasant place in the United States

. At least weather-wise. That’s according to a new interactive map put together by Atlanta-based software engineer and designer Kelly Norton, who now works for Etsy and has also worked for Google.

Those jobs must give him a lot of vacation days, because Norton seems to have plenty of time on his hands. The software whiz pores over weather data compiled over the past 23 years by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create his map, which looks like this:

But you’ll have to visit Norton’s own site to get the full interactive version to enter your own location to see how many pleasant days per year you can expect where you live.

Kelly Norton created his own definition of “pleasant” for purposes of his study, but it appears to be a rather uncontroversial one. To qualify as a “pleasant day,” the Fahrenheit mean temperature must fall between 55 and 75 degrees, but never top 85 or dip below 45 in the 24-hour-period.

The day must also have no significant rain, snowfall or other precipitation.

Based on that definition, which Norton admits is “subjective” — though he adds, “a lot of subjects share that same preference” — the number one most pleasant weather city is, drum roll please, Los Angeles.

The City of Angels just barely edges out its neighbor to the south, San Diego. Los Angeles recorded 183 pleasant days per year, San Diego scored 182.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, every city in the Top 5 most pleasant American places is in California. Oxnard registered 166 pleasant days. The L.A. suburb of Simi Valley scored 156 and the natural rival of Los Angeles to the north, San Francisco, came in fifth with 153 pleasant days per year.

The most unpleasant places? Well, good folks in McAllister, Montana, your city takes the booby prize for worst weather in the U.S.A., with a scant 14 pleasant days per year.

Clancy, Montana, Northeast of Reno, Nevada, and Douglas Wyoming tied for second-most horrible at 15 pleasant days per year. East of Cedarville in California rounded out the bottom five with 16 pleasant days.

Residents of Los Angeles and New York are constantly debating which city is better, but in terms of pleasant weather days, it’s case closed. The Big Apple’s 67 pleasant days per year can’t hold a candle to the whopping Los Angeles total.