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Yeah, it's mostly like a Northeast fall. You will definitely experience days where it feels cool/cold though, especially in the morning but the afternoons are generally mild. 40 degrees does feel colder here than in the north for whatever reason. I've only turned my heat on a handful of times since I've lived here.
Yeah, it's mostly like a Northeast fall. You will definitely experience days where it feels cool/cold though, especially in the morning but the afternoons are generally mild. 40 degrees does feel colder here than in the north for whatever reason. I've only turned my heat on a handful of times since I've lived here.
What happens is after one or two years in SC, your blood thins and below 60 seems cold. I am from Boston and lived in Chicago for many years. I know what winter is and the winters here are sissy winters. If not for the calendar, I would not even call them winters. You can also wipe the word snow out of your vocabulary unless taking about somewhere else. The big box hardware store here do not even stock snow blowers. Winters here are one reason I live here....LOL
I think the easiest way to describe Winter here is to say it's like Fall in the NE and Midwest.
This is how I've always described it to friends/family who still live up North but ask about our winters.
I recall a couple weeks this past winter (mid-January) where the night temps went down to the high-20's, low 30's. However, by mid-day your back in the 50's.
What happens is after one or two years in SC, your blood thins and below 60 seems cold. I am from Boston and lived in Chicago for many years. I know what winter is and the winters here are sissy winters. If not for the calendar, I would not even call them winters. You can also wipe the word snow out of your vocabulary unless taking about somewhere else. The big box hardware store here do not even stock snow blowers. Winters here are one reason I live here....LOL
True. I've been down here since 2009 winter though. However, I do still spend a lot of time doing snow activities in other parts of the country during the winter so maybe that has kept my blood thicker
Winters here in the Lowcountry are usually mild compared to the rest of the nation. About three years ago we had a decent snow storm for our area around Valentines' Day. My house had around 2.5", but some places inland got as much as 8-9".
If we get any chance of flurries or ice, everyone goes crazy and mobs the stores. The last ice we had was January 2011.
It also depends on where you live in the area. A few miles from the ocean, there's some winters where it doesn't get below freezing. In inland places like Summerville and Moncks Corner, there's several nights a year in the 20s.
Thanks a lot everyone! I'm so happy to hear that winters are basically like New England's fall. I love fall, it's my favorite season and I don't know if I'd be able to move there if there was no real fall feel. I understand the summers are hot and humid.. Which I know I won't be a fan of.. But the rest of the year sounds lovely. There's always a trade off it seems. Haha
It seems like your questions have mostly been answered but, FWIW, I'm originally from coastal Monmouth and I spent two years in SC - one in Columbia and one in Charleston.
Charleston doesn't get any hotter than it does in NJ - it's just that that the sun is stronger and it sustains those temps in the low 90s for months on end. So rather than an average summer high of 86 in TR it's more like 92 in Charleston. I think the biggest difference is that it doesn't cool off at night. It also depends exactly where you live. The further inland you go the more temperature extremes you get. Columbia has absolutely brutal summers and while the winter days are mild it's usually a little cooler than Chas. and frost is common at night.
As for winter in Charleston - I was at the beach for Thanksgiving. I didn't go swimming but I was there in jeans and a t-shirt if that's any help. It's chilly in the morning but it's a rare day that it doesn't get up around 60 or above. I usually left the house with just a sweatshirt on that I could leave at my desk. Occasionally I would need to put a light jacket on over that but that was a couple of days all winter. I never needed gloves or a scarf. I think the major difference, even when it's in the low 50s in Charleston is that there's rarely that biting northwest wind that we always seem to get in the mid-atlantic when the temps dip.
The best way to compare it to central jersey is if you skipped everything between Thanksgiving and Easter. Think about the variability in weather you get in NJ from one Thanksgiving to the next or in late March/early April and that's basically what December/January/February in Charleston is like.
I've bounced around between NJ, NYC, Philly and warmer climes and I now live in a climate that's more like Tampa and I can say with certainty that your blood doesn't "thin". It's that you forget how to dress and you forget what cold really feels like. When I moved to Philly from Charleston it was late December and I didn't have any proper winter clothes. I hadn't spent a winter up there in 3 years.
Nowadays when it's in the 60s and 70s here i wear jeans and a t-shirt and carry a sweater or sweatshirt because it cools off at night . . . and that's exactly what I would do back home but you still see locals here who wear shorts and tshirts all year round.
Here as in Charleston I've been known to use the heat at night - even though it's usually warm enough to have a window or two open during the day. It gets cold at night in the winter (typically high 30s to high 40s) and the houses are usually built for the heat not for the short winters. For instance my place is now is mostly tile floors and most of two walls of the apartment are big windows and sliding glass doors. They're not the best in the way of insulation. If you're buying a newer house it probably won't be as much of an issue. There still might be a few nights where you want to turn on the heat to take the chill out of the air but it's usually more fun to throw a log on the fireplace.
Thanks drive carephilly!! That is very helpful considering you know wherein coming from! That's what I was hoping to hear. I know NJ gets hot and humid in the summer.. I'm on the bay and right by the seaside bridge so I know about humidity in the summer. Haha. Sounds like its pretty nice down there in the winter. Thanks!
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