Yelm, WA Night Sky Brightness
How dark is the sky in Yelm, WA?
Yelm reads as dark sky on this dataset's scale. Among the darkest skies of any US city in this dataset. The Milky Way should be visible overhead on clear, moonless nights. Yelm's sky is brighter than 1.3% of the 3,206 cities in this dataset.
Worth remembering: this is satellite radiance, not a ground observation. A true Bortle rating needs a human eye at night, this is the closest large-scale substitute, covered fully in the Bortle scale guide.
Yelm is already about as dark as this dataset gets
Nothing in this dataset's 3,206 US cities measures a darker sky than Yelm. That doesn't mean nowhere is darker, unincorporated land and wilderness aren't part of this dataset at all, only incorporated cities of 10,000 people or more.
Yelm against the rest of the dataset
About 11,715 people live in Yelm, WA, sized enough to appear in this dataset of 3,206 incorporated US cities. Ranked against the other 3,206 cities here by the methodology guide's own sampling, Yelm comes in at 42, darkest to brightest.