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I used to live in Coastal Connecticut. I found that living inside the snow-belt region, for me, was too much. My Dw and I prefer living well North of the snow-belt. It was also very expensive, and the crime was higher than I was comfortable with.
Where is the snow-belt region? And how did you move north to get out of it? I'm confused!
Where is the snow-belt region? And how did you move north to get out of it? I'm confused!
Most of Maine doesn’t get much snow. Winter is cold and dry. Sugarloaf is the only place that gets 200”. A tall mountain with nothing west of it so the orographic lift produces a lot of snow on the north/downwind slope of the mountain. Go 20 miles east of there and they might get 45” per winter. Maine up by Bangor misses most of the coastal storms that drop large snowfalls south of there.
Most of Maine doesn’t get much snow. Winter is cold and dry. Sugarloaf is the only place that gets 200”. A tall mountain with nothing west of it so the orographic lift produces a lot of snow on the north/downwind slope of the mountain. Go 20 miles east of there and they might get 45” per winter. Maine up by Bangor misses most of the coastal storms that drop large snowfalls south of there.
Fascinating. Did not know that. So they’re missing all those nor’easters that come up
Yes. My husband and I moved to Arizona, 30 years ago, and worked. We settled in the Phoenix area because there is more employment available. We are retired now, but I am not yet of Medicare age. Due to constraints with my health insurance offering different plans in rural and urban areas within the state, I need to stay in the urban area due to insurance costs.
Would we have chosen to live in Phoenix if we could have lived in Prescott? Of course not!! But there are more employment opportunities in the Phoenix metro area, so that is where we stayed.
The summers in Phoenix are very hot and uncomfortable. We do not have a high enough income to rent a place up north for the summer, so we just tolerate it. In addition, again, my health insurance covers only emergency situations out of the state, so until I am on Medicare, I need to be careful. You do get used to the heat but spend most time indoors. We would consider moving to a cooler place, but the property taxes and home prices are higher in the area we came from, so we continue to live here.
So, as long as the a/c works, we grin and bear it. And we are able to live within our budget. And now, in October, the weather is getting beautiful.
To me, ideal weather is between 20-60 degrees, sunny and dry. One reason I moved from eastern MA to mountain Colorado is to get that kind of weather, especially during the summer. I really wanted to get away from humidity in all seasons. The winters in eastern MA feel so cold because they are so damp, not so much because of snow. And the summers, to me, were increasingly sticky for long periods of time, while not so hot, very humid.
So I moved to mountain Colorado. The summer was blastingly blazingly hot (record heat) in the 90s every day with less than 15 percent humidity. I had to install an a/c in my little one-story house. The sun was blinding and the drought astonishing.
Now it's truly fall and my perfect weather is here. Frost melts as soon as the sun come up and there was a small snowfall the other day, very pretty.
Anytime I've gone to a beach area where other people go for "great weather" I've been miserable. This includes Hawaii, Caribbean and coastal Mexico, Florida. I'M DONE going anywhere too warm. And I don't ski or any snow stuff, just cannot stand a damp environment, hot or cold.
Where is the snow-belt region? And how did you move north to get out of it? I'm confused!
The region East of the Great Lakes, gets huge dumps of snow and rain.
This region is basically "Grand Rapids-Detroit-Cleveland-Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse-Ithaca-Scranton-Albany-NYC-New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Worcester-Providence-Manchester-Boston".
Not very much of Maine dips down South into that region.
Inside the snow belt they get over-night snow dumped on them, that will be multiple feet of snow in a single storm.
We may get that quantity of snow spread out over the course of the entire winter, a couple inches one week, a couple inches the next week, and so on.
Maine gets a lot of summer tourists from the snow belt.
They think we are heroic for living here since we are North of them, they think we must get 10X more snow than they get.
But they forget that we are not in the snow belt.
Location: We_tside PNW (Columbia Gorge) / CO / SA TX / Thailand
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hiero2
I'm currently in southern NE. The cold in the winters is getting to be tedious and an issue. Otherwise, it's good.
There are a lot of places in this country where COL is just flat out insane. Most sun-belt coastal zones. Most of the sun-belt, for that matter. But there are a lot of places where a person can still buy a house for less than $100k. I was surprised when somebody told me you could find places where livable houses could still be had for less than $50k, but it's true. Easily verified by spending some time on a real estate site.
Southern New England, or Southern Nebraska...
Taxes for retirees are not favorable in either.
If you DIG you can find very inexpensive housing in much of the USA (away from metro)
Use the obituaries or some other way to find the places BEFORE the realtors do.
Once it is listed FS, it is TOO LATE to get a 'deal'
The region East of the Great Lakes, gets huge dumps of snow and rain.
This region is basically "Grand Rapids-Detroit-Cleveland-Toronto-Buffalo-Rochester-Syracuse-Ithaca-Scranton-Albany-NYC-New Haven-Hartford-Springfield-Worcester-Providence-Manchester-Boston".
Not very much of Maine dips down South into that region.
Inside the snow belt they get over-night snow dumped on them, that will be multiple feet of snow in a single storm.
We may get that quantity of snow spread out over the course of the entire winter, a couple inches one week, a couple inches the next week, and so on.
Maine gets a lot of summer tourists from the snow belt.
They think we are heroic for living here since we are North of them, they think we must get 10X more snow than they get.
But they forget that we are not in the snow belt.
Oh ok yes I know what you mean now.
I am in Northern NJ. We do get the Nor'easters occasionally where we get the two feet of snow at once. I'm not sure if we get as much as Boston though.
I am in Northern NJ. We do get the Nor'easters occasionally where we get the two feet of snow at once. I'm not sure if we get as much as Boston though.
For about 15 years I owned an apartment building in Connecticut, We would occasionally get a storm that would dump multiple feet of snow on us.
Now I have lived in Southern Maine for 13 years, the biggest single dump of snow we have seen has been 14 inches. Normally every winter we get one storm each week with up to 6 inches of snow. Followed by 5 or 6 days of clear sunny skies. It may accumulate up to 3 foot deep, but that takes all Winter to gradually build-up that high and only in spots where it has not been disturbed.
I think that everywhere along the Eastern coast will get the occasional storm blowing out of the North-East.
I would hate living anywhere that was known for dumping multiple feet of snow at once.
Most of Maine doesn’t get much snow. Winter is cold and dry. Sugarloaf is the only place that gets 200”. A tall mountain with nothing west of it so the orographic lift produces a lot of snow on the north/downwind slope of the mountain. Go 20 miles east of there and they might get 45” per winter. Maine up by Bangor misses most of the coastal storms that drop large snowfalls south of there.
Compared to what? 200" is unfathomable to me. Coastal Maine may not get much snow compared to areas along the Great Lakes shores that get tons of lake effect snow, but for a large percentage of the country, 45" of snow with highs rarely above freezing is going to be a bit scary
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