In order to qualify the fluctuating nature of solar radiation under tropical climate, we classify daily distributions of the clearness index kt by estimating a finite mixture of Dirichlet distributions without assuming any parametric hypothesis on these daily distributions. The method is applied to solar radiation measurements performed in Guadeloupe (16°2 N, 61 W) where important fluctuations can be observed even within a short period of a few minutes. The results put in evidence four distinct classes of distributions corresponding to different types of days. The sequence of such classes can be of interest for prediction.