One City in New England Makes ‘Gloomiest’ List

Shocker: the gloomiest city in the U.S. is Seattle with a Gloom Score of 90.90.

Does anyone other than me feel the winter blues a little once the weather turns cold and rainy here in New England? Seriously. Luckily, I have a busy daily routine to keep me from having too much time on my hands to fall into a deep, dark depression during the gloomy winters. See, it almost happened right there.

The U.S. city known for its cloudy skies and wet weather is officially crowned the gloomiest place in the country. So, congrats to Seattle for being dark and stormy– and sad.

BestPlaces completed its nationwide survey of the nation's 50 largest metro areas and dubbed the Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue area the gloomiest of all. Having lived in Seattle for two years back in the late '90s, I have to tell you, the weather we experienced was not nearly as bad as it's portrayed. We joke that Seattle, Washington natives probably just tell people it rains all the time so that people will think twice before moving there and overcrowding the state.

Seattle scored a total "Gloom Score" of 90.90, earning its high marks for its percentage of cloud cover, average hours of daylight, and amount of rainy days between November and January.

The second gloomiest place in the nation? The runner-up honor goes to the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro region in Oregon and Washington with an 88.20 Gloom Score. Not far from Seattle, Vancouver is just beautiful. We spent the weekend there once and loved the city and its beauty.

The area that came in third happens to be on the other side of the nation, with the Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls in New York scoring 88.03 on the gloom chart. Cleveland, Ohio and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania came fourth and fifth, respectively.

And last but not least, No. 10 on the list is Boston, Massachusetts with a Gloom Score of 67.80. This sounds about right, yes?