Krista, I grew up in East Meadow which is literally right next door to Bellmore.
You'll find all sorts of differing opinions (about the same things!) on LI on this forum, that's for sure. I do believe that if you happen to be a dyed-in-the-wool Long Islander (like me) then no other place will ever
really measure up. Other people, of course, may absolutely hate the very things that you or I feel are among LI's better points ... and that's fine too (as long as people don't use those differing preferences as a reason to be insulting).
Honestly the winters have not been all that bad here. The last one that I remember as being really horrendous from start to finish was back in the early 1990s. We had SIXTEEN separate snowstorms between the second week of December and the first week of March, with a couple of ice storms thrown in. I remember it vividly because we were building a house at the time, and the framers insisted that it would be "noooo problem" to start the framing right after Thanksgiving "because winters really aren't bad anymore". The first snowstorm hit us two weeks later and never let up
all winter. But don't worry: that was the last time I ever waved a red flag in front of the weather gods (obviously that Winter from H*** was all our fault).
Two years ago we had a total of about 2 ft of snow for the entire witner but that was pretty much broken up into 4 or 5 different storms that occurred between Thanksgiving and the end of February. As usual they alternated with warm spells. Last winter was a walk in the park. My garden diary says we had a total of 10" for the entire winter and the biggest snowfall only dumped 6" at once. It went up into the 40s the next day.
If you want to minimize the amount of snow, look at the south shore areas rather than the middle of the island or the north shore. In winter, precipitation that falls as snow on the North shore is often just rain on the South shore. There's
at least a 6-degree temperature differential between, say, Sunrise Highway and the LI Expressway and that often makes the difference between what falls as rain vs snow. In summer, the south shore can easily be 10 degrees or more cooler than mid-island or north shore, from the offshore breeze.
Do you have any ideas on specific places to look? Check out the MLSLI website if you haven't already; although the market is slow right now just after the holidays (meaning not many new listings).
If you like to garden, a south shore location will be better for your plants (warmer winter/cooler summer) and for your back (north shore = rocky clay; south shore tends to be more sandy loam). But the soil itself is richer and more acid once you get north of the Expressway.
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Moving back to Long Island from NC
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