Winter wonderland? (Denver: ski resorts, crime rates, how much)

[RisingSun333]

I currently live in Ohio. I am considering moving sometime next year. Question is, as is often the case, where? I've been doing a lot of thinking recently.... And as if revealing the combination of my low IQ and attention deficits, it just goes on and on and on......

Florida may be nice.... Wait, they have hurricanes coming every summer, which is hot and humid, therefore very umcomfortable. I don't like oceans anyway. The smell of salt water is something I cannot live with....

What about Atlanta? Big metropolitan city with...... heavy traffic and high crime rates and..... Well, Goergia in general is not that far from where I am (Ohio), but wait, didn't they say at the Discovery Channel that there's an unexploded atomic bomb buried in the Savannah area?

I don't want to live worrying about earthquakes constantly.... Well, maybe the Pacific states should be excluded then..... I hate tornado, too, though. Well, then, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa....etc are not my choice, right?

What about nuclear stuff? There must be some states where there are no nuclear plants. According to my web search, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky, New Mexico, Oregon, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, Hawaii and Alaska have no nuclear plants. Colorado used to have one, but it's been decomissioned in 1989...

Speaking of nuclear fear, Nevada has an active nuclear weapon testing site within 100 miles north of Vegas. And now, they're planning to dump 70,000 tons of plutonium byproducts in the Yucca Mountain, which is also within 100 miles from Vegas.....

I like musicals and concerts. So, I'd like to live very close to where major metropolitan attractions are.... Actually, I like Vegas a lot, but I don't want to live with fear for nuclear disasters....

When I was visiting freinds in Scottsdale (AZ), they kept saying "It's hot here but it's dry hot, therefore it's much more tolerable.", too often....I mean, way too often as if they're trying to force themselves to believe it. Great place to visit, but I don't see myself living where there's burning hot air blowing at your face like a hair drier and once you go inside the mall or something, the air-conditioned air is almost antarctic. If you have to keep the velvet-thick black curtain completely closed in your hotel room in a daytime, you got a problem.... I like the red-brown mountains, though.

I just received a brochure by mail "Mayo Clinic Health Systems are looking for new emergency medicine physicians...." What about moving to Minneapolis (I happen to be an ER physician)?.... Isn't winter brutal in Minnesota? I thought the winter of Chicago was beyond description, but Minnesota must be worse.....

What about Colorado? Very scenic mountains (red-brown ones like saying "wild West", not ordinary green ones), distinct four seasons, dry and comfortable summer, no earthquakes, no floods, no hurricanes, no tornados (right?), nuclear-plant free (since 1989), established metropolitan city in the center (Denver).....great!!!! .....But what about winter? There are a lot of ski resorts in Colorado, so it must snow a lot in Colorado....

Now, I have questions. How bad is winter in Colorado? Does it vary depending on where in Colorado you are? If it does, which part of the state typically has milder winter than the others? Coming from where we get snows only occasionally in winter months, how much more intense would the winter of Colorado feel like?

I would greatly appreciate your kind feedback!

[steveco.]

Obviously the ski resorts are going to get a lot of snow being at such high elevations and it really does depend on where you are. The majority of the time any storms that the ski resorts get typically won't affect the cities like denver and co. springs since most of them tend to lose a lot of power over the continental divide. And since the air is drier out here we have less of the damp cold that happens out east. And if there is a storm in the city it usually lasts for a half day and the snow melts ususally completely in the city a couple days after.
Im sure its similar in far west colorado too i just don't have any experience with winters out there

[Katarina Witt]

There is probably more snow in your part of Ohio than in metro Denver most winters. I would refer you to the Colorado weather thread, too.

[jamh13]

Denver gets more average snow a year than any midwestern city. And more than alot of them added together. It just doesn't stick around here, sun melts it pretty fast(usually). So what is the purpose in it snowing here - To destroy my car!!

[jamh13]

Oh yeah, and there is alot of tornadoes but mainly east of I-25.