Minneapolis Winters (school, pros and cons, to live)

[BelieveInCleve]

Are you people serious??? -20 and -40 degrees??? I live by Cleveland and everyone says we have bad winters but our average winter temperatures in jan-feb is like a high of 38 and a low of 26 so i guess its hot compared to Minneapolis. Over here it hardly ever goes below 20 degrees except maybe 5-10 days a year. Ive never seen the temperature go below 0 over here ever. Wow Minneapolis must suck.... i couldnt handle it being that cold.

[Jaxx99]

If you look at actual weather facts, you'll see that getting to -20 is very uncommon, -40 pretty much unheard of, except for the very nothern part. In fact, in the past few years, I think we've only had 1 or 2 days that didn't break out of the negative territory. People here are talking about -20 and -40. A more typical winter day in Mn is a high of 30 and a low of 10. Quite a difference.

I didn't like our winters either after graduating from high school. I moved to So Cal, and then spent time in Texas and Portland, OR. A bit of time in Denver as well. And then I realized that warm weather wasn't as important to me as many other things. Now I live in MN and doubt I'll ever leave. But it took me leaving to realize that.

To each his own, I guess.

[doublesuited77]

also remember that there is much less wind in the winter than other midwestern cities like Cleveland or Chicago. I have a good friend who moved from Minny to Chicago and thought the winter were much worse.

[akronbball]

Originally Posted by Cle440

Are you people serious??? -20 and -40 degrees??? I live by Cleveland and everyone says we have bad winters but our average winter temperatures in jan-feb is like a high of 38 and a low of 26 so i guess its hot compared to Minneapolis. Over here it hardly ever goes below 20 degrees except maybe 5-10 days a year. Ive never seen the temperature go below 0 over here ever. Wow Minneapolis must suck.... i couldnt handle it being that cold.

Cle440, I lived in Akron for 5 years and I would have to say NE Ohio winters are worse than Minneapolis for me. The constant cloudy days where it seems like you don’t see the sun for months can be depressing. The temps are a little warmer in NE Ohio, but there seems to be so many of those rainy mid 30 degree days that it makes me feel as if its colder than Mpls. The snowbelt area also gets more snow than Mpls especially the east suburbs of Cleveland that can get over 100” a year.

[Jaxx99]

Cloudy and bone-chilling wind vs. winter wonderland with fluffy snow and sun? I know what I'd choose.

To those of you who think our winters are dreary - be careful where you move! We are actually above the median in terms of days of sun per year. it can be a LOT worse.

[GraniteStater]

The above poster is defintiely right. The closer you get to the Great Plains the more sunny days you get. The cities near the Great Lakes like South Bend, Grand Rapids, Cleveland, and Chicago have many more cloudy days in the winter compared with cities not in close proximity to the Great Lakes.

[Kingsnkali]

I was never bothered by the snow or cold in Minneapolis. What finally got me to move was the length of the winter. March was a killer. That one month was what did it for me. 30 days that seemed to last 2 months.... I would always get Spring Fever too early and then come crashing down year after year.

[BelieveInCleve]

I live west of Cleveland and we actually only get about 35 inches of snowfall a year and its usually too warm to ever stay on the ground for more then 2 days.I know someone who lives up by Minneapolis and he said when it snows up there it stays on the ground for a long time because it hardly ever goes above 30 in the winter. Another thing is that if it ever gets below 10 degrees our kids automatically get off of school. The snowfall averages for Cleveland and Minneapolis are actually the same, both average 50 inches of snowfall a year. The bad snowbelt goes from the far NE Cleveland suburbs all the way to Erie and North of Buffalo. Erie and Buffalo are both much worse than Cleveland they average more then 90 inches of snow a year while Cleveland is only 50. Chicago averages 40 inches of snow a year.

[IncredibleKaren]

The harsh Minnesota winters have been pretty much non-existent for the last few years. I'm a Wisconsin native (moved here in '97) and the winters here are a lot different than what I grew up with but still not horrible enough to make me want to move away.

[alex1lake]

It is interesting to see younger people who grew up here want to move away, while more mature crowd seems to want to move back.
Once you move around and check out other states, you realize, that quality of life in MN is a lot better than that in many other west coast states.
We lived in Oregon and California and as our family grew we realized school system expecially in CA (OR , too) is very much below average. We moved to Midwest, MN for the quality of life and schools primarily. Our kid just LOVES it here. He was born in CA and is EXTATIC about winters, snow.
I think it all depends on what you are looking for in life, people always think "grass is greener" somewhere else.
You will almost never get to experience "White Christmas"( or New Year as it was the case last winter) once you move away and you will gradually miss it among smog and heat.