Hot cities or cold cities; 4 seasons or no seasons; desert cities or green cities?

[SteveD]

Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown

I second this and I don't live there. I like having all the seasons but I don't like harsh winters.

To me, Atlanta's weather is pretty spot on for me. Yes, it gets hot as hell in summer but where doesn't it? I find that its location inland and slightly higher in altitude makes the other seasons there near perfect. I assume it's very similar in Greenville SC and Asheville NC, but those places are too small for me.

I do love the Ocean though, so it would be hard for me to live anywhere further than and hour or two from an Ocean (or the gulf).

Yes...Piedmont southeast US...solid seasonal changes, winters are brief and occasionally interesting...gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous spring and fall...summers not as hot as southern areas below the fall line. Trees, lakes, and hills galore.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by CaliNative

NYC seasons graded:

Spring: B+/A-
Summer: B-/B
Fall: A/A+
Winter:C+

Not bad. The rains are a bit much, but make the forest trees grow. Summer days can be hot, humid and rainy, but a surprising number of days are nice. Fall is often beautiful. Spring too, but it rains a lot. Winter has cold snaps, but most days aren't intolerably cold. Not bad at all. I could handle NYC.

who rated this? you?

i would say its pretty right on the money.

the bonus thats puts it well over the top is if you do not want a particular season its easy to grab flights to go somewhere else for awhile.

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by James Bond Agent 007

I think my favorite climate would be ... Cleveland.

and between may and november you would not be wrong!

[MonkeyRonin]

Originally Posted by 10023

I don’t know how anyone could miss rain (and I live in London).

Maybe it helps to clean the air, which is nice after it rains and the sun comes out, but there is literally nothing that is enjoyable to do in the rain unless you’re a homebody that wants to not leave the house all day.

• Keeps things lush & green
• Refreshing
• Nice ambiance

But mostly, too much of any single thing just gets monotonous (granted, if having to choose between monotonous rain or monotonous sun I'd obviously go with the latter).

[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

• Keeps things lush & green
• Refreshing
• Nice ambiance

But mostly, too much of any single thing just gets monotonous (granted, if having to choose between monotonous rain or monotonous sun I'd obviously go with the latter).

A light rain is indeed refreshing and I kind of like it (same with fog). Heavy rain is awful.

The ideal climate for me would never break 70, unless I'm going to the beach .

[hipster duck]

I'm becoming easier in my weather preferences as I get older. I'm resigned to the fact that our giant, hulking mass of a contintent which has very few peninsulas or serious mountain ranges east of the rockies is just a big open space for hurricanes to blow pretty far north, winter storms to blow pretty far south and for continental climates to prevail.

I still have a few dealbreakers:

- I can't live in a place with low levels of sunlight in the winter. I think Vancouver was my limit; Toronto is better but not much. A place like Juneau is a hard pass.

- I can't live in a place where the average daytime high is below 22C / 72F in the hottest month of the year. I want real heat at least somewhere in the year, and I don't want to travel for it.

- I don't mind snow - I even like it for winter activities that I don't have to travel for - but I don't want the main snowpack to last past late March and I don't want to see frozen precipitation of any kind in May or in October.

[MolsonExport]

If anything it should be a requirement we have lawns and big leafy trees in the desert cities

cool story bro

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by 10023

Name one. Seville is known as having the mildest winters among European cities and it’s about 10 degrees colder than LA in the winter on average. Valencia is similar, as is Palermo or Messina. Naples and Barcelona are maybe 15 degrees colder on average. Athens can get snow flurries.

Your claim was that L.A. didn't have a Mediterranean climate. The Mediterranean touches three continents, so I can assure you that I can name plenty of cities in the region that have winters that are at least as mild as L.A.'s.

[homebucket]

Originally Posted by Obadno

If anything it should be a requirement we have lawns and big leafy trees in the desert cities.

[edale]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I reject the notion that desert Cities aren't green.

They definitely are not, and the parts that are green are artificial. If you live in the desert, you've decided rain and greenery isn't important to you. There's no reason people in Phoenix should expect to live around grass and forests.

[edale]

Originally Posted by 10023

I don’t know how anyone could miss rain (and I live in London).

Maybe it helps to clean the air, which is nice after it rains and the sun comes out, but there is literally nothing that is enjoyable to do in the rain unless you’re a homebody that wants to not leave the house all day.

Probably because you've never lived someplace where it rarely rains. I find myself missing rain quite often in LA, especially in the late summer and fall. It basically rains in LA November-April. Other than some lite drizzle during the May Grey/June Gloom, it almost never rains outside of those months. When it gets to Halloween and it hasn't rained in 7 months, I find myself desperately wanting some clouds and rain. It cleans the air and the streets, washes the dust away, refreshes the plants, and just makes things feel more balanced. Month after month of sunshine does get old after a while.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by edale

They definitely are not, and the parts that are green are artificial. If you live in the desert, you've decided rain and greenery isn't important to you. There's no reason people in Phoenix should expect to live around grass and forests.

stop talking crazy.

everyone knows that phoenix is just as wet and green as atlanta.

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Obadno

People really dont comprehend how much humidity changes the way you experience temperatures.

Id take 105 over 90 and Humid literally any day.

I hate the soupy humidity of Houston's summers but one positive is that it's good for the skin.

[Yuri]

Originally Posted by MonkeyRonin

• Keeps things lush & green
• Refreshing
• Nice ambiance

But mostly, too much of any single thing just gets monotonous (granted, if having to choose between monotonous rain or monotonous sun I'd obviously go with the latter).

Rain is amazing. The sound, the smell. It keeps everything lush and beautiful. Obviously a 24/7 monsoon is not nice either, but overall rainfall is a must for me.

Interestingly, people in Brazil don't like dry weather. Winters in the Mid-West (Brasília) are very dry, hence the savannah (cerrado) vegetation there. Respiratory problems are a constant in this time of the year.

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by edale

Probably because you've never lived someplace where it rarely rains. I find myself missing rain quite often in LA, especially in the late summer and fall. It basically rains in LA November-April. Other than some lite drizzle during the May Grey/June Gloom, it almost never rains outside of those months. When it gets to Halloween and it hasn't rained in 7 months, I find myself desperately wanting some clouds and rain. It cleans the air and the streets, washes the dust away, refreshes the plants, and just makes things feel more balanced. Month after month of sunshine does get old after a while.

I concur. Even as an LA native, I do appreciate the rain. It changes things up. I even appreciate cloudy days, and the May Gray/June Gloom.

Hehe but of course during those rare occasional El Niños when it rains every day for 2 weeks straight, people start complaining---including myself. "I miss the sun!" LA people are fickle that way.

[edale]

Originally Posted by sopas ej

I concur. Even as an LA native, I do appreciate the rain. It changes things up. I even appreciate cloudy days, and the May Gray/June Gloom.

Hehe but of course during those rare occasional El Niños when it rains every day for 2 weeks straight, people start complaining---including myself. "I miss the sun!" LA people are fickle that way.

Winter in LA is my favorite season because of the rain and how green the hills get. I love checking my weather app and seeing the rain icon! I have friends who complain about the little bit of rain we do get, though. I'll never understand that!

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by JManc

I hate the soupy humidity of Houston's summers but one positive is that it's good for the skin.

Yes! When my sister and her family lived in Hawaii, and they lived there for like 10 or 12 years, she didn't use lotion. When they moved back to California, my sister and a few of her kids had nosebleeds, my assumption being that they weren't used to the dry weather.

They also weren't used to sunsets past 6:30pm and stupid DST!

[sopas ej]

Originally Posted by edale

Winter in LA is my favorite season because of the rain and how green the hills get. I love checking my weather app and seeing the rain icon! I have friends who complain about the little bit of rain we do get, though. I'll never understand that!

Yes, winter is also my favorite season in LA. You can dress for the chill, and it's never more than a jacket or sweater, MAYBE a heavier coat, and the hills get green, and of course it's all shades of green, with the grasses and chaparral, so you get light greens mixed with a lot of those olive and mossy green colors that I associate with California. The morning dew during winter/early spring also helps make the plant life stay green.

Yeah, I have coworkers who'll say on a very cloudy day, "It's so gloomy." I love cloudy days, because it's sunny here most of the year. I wanna tell them "It's not 'gloomy,' it's just all in your head."

[Obadno]

Its not your landscaping that is the big water user its Agriculture and Manufacturing.

As I have said many times, Phoenix has quadrupled in population while hardly increasing it water usage due to urban development replacing farmland. Not to mention there are plenty of species of drought resistant leafy trees and grass that don't use water like elms and oaks.

By why understand something when you can be glib about it instead?

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by edale

They definitely are not, and the parts that are green are artificial. If you live in the desert, you've decided rain and greenery isn't important to you. There's no reason people in Phoenix should expect to live around grass and forests.

Not all deserts are the Sahara