Any TX town not humid?? (El Paso, Lubbock: move, housing, station)

[Westerntraveler]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

Well, Midland is quite a bit more humid than it was 30 years ago.....but still dry compared to most of the rest of Texas.

Okay. kool

[CptnRn]

Humidity can be surprisingly high in some places where you would not expect it, such as the 83% shown in El Paso today. Of course those are usually anomalies.

http://www.usairnet.com/weather/maps...tive-humidity/

[losttechnician]

Raining in the El Paso region, as it is in the Panhandle.

Kudos to you for this map though. I never knew such a critter existed. Very cool!

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by CptnRn

Humidity can be surprisingly high in some places where you would not expect it, such as the 83% shown in El Paso today. Of course those are usually anomalies.

Texas Relative Humidity Map - Air Sports Net

It's probably been raining a lot there lately, so the humidty would naturally be up.

The humidity here in NW NM would normally be below 20%, but it has been raining up here (as well as most of NM and a lot of CO), so it's a high 55%. Just absolute, heavy gullywashers, the first summer I've seen them in almost 3 years.

The monsoon season has arrived in full force. I imagine the same is probably true for El Paso.

Correct me if I'm wrong....

[pattypaw]

Originally Posted by highplainsrus

I've visited area around Orono during the leaf season, also roaming up and down the coast,
seeing picture post cards around every curve.
I know at least one Texan who moved there and has survived a few winters now. Wondered if
I could handle it. I don't mean to pry, but is that why you want to return to Texas - the winters?
Or just tired of lobster?

I'm sorry - I just read this and it's probably too late to respond but here goes....

The winters are getting worse in Maine. We had an unbelievable amount of subzero temps last winter. It snowed so badly all winter at one point we couldn't get out of our house at all - I mean totally snowed in with the doors buried in heavy deep snow. When we were younger, we could handle this. But it's getting very hard the older we're getting. We've lived here almost 20 years. If you move to Maine, you want a smaller house, well insulated and be sure to check out what type of heating system it has -- check the heating costs. Down in southern Maine would be easier to survive but there has also been a problem with Lyme disease from ticks, EEE and West Nile Virus from the mosquitoes - which seems worse down there for some strange reason. Do a search on Maine news, sports, politics and obituaries — Bangor Daily News — BDN Maine about Lyme and EEE to see what I mean.

The winters are bad BUT that isn't the total problem -- the problem is the cost of heating. Most of Maine depends on heating oil being delivered to your home (prepaid, usually a minimum of 100 gals.). We don't have natural gas in most areas, it's pretty primitive here. There are mostly old huge two story houses in Maine. I live in one of these that has a water baseboard pipe heating ran by heating oil. When I moved into this house it cost .89 a gallon - now it's up to about $3.60 a gal and has been higher at times. So it went from costing about $300 to fill your tank to $1000 -- and that doesn't last that long. So then people run electric heaters too to keep from freezing and pipes freezing --- so the electricity gets run WAY up. Heating is actually driving people out of their homes - empty houses all around me that aren't being sold - and they're pretty cheap. I've known many who were forced to move. Our town is turning into a ghost town.

Pellet stoves and wood stoves are very popular in this area. We have a pellet stove which probably saved our lives a few times when we ran out of oil but it really can't heat the entire house. Pellets cost us about $5 a day on top of the oil and high electricity. We had a really hard winter last year and we were going through $600 in oil a month plus pellets/electricity. And that is keeping the heater at 65.

So this was all a little easier when we were younger but becoming impossible now that we're older. AND to top it off we have custody of four grandchildren so we can't just move to a smaller place.

There is no work in this area. The school districts used to be the main employers but they have so little money now. I'm about an hour north of Bangor. The further north you get, the wilder it gets. Drug trafficking and drugs are becoming a big problem -- home invasions --- fraud --- domestic violence -- felons with guns --a haven for child molesters who think they can hide in the trees. The isolation is a big attraction to criminals.

I actually grew up on the Calif. desert but haven't been back there for about 30 years. Lived in East TX in the 1980s and loved it but afraid I can't take the humidity anymore with my asthma. I'm also having very serious allergy problems here in the last few years here (so many plants, weeds, trees, bogs.....beautiful place but so much pollen) - in July I can barely go outside even with allergy medicines and ended up at the ER once this year. Don't get me wrong though, Maine is one of the most beautiful places I've ever lived (flowers, trees, rivers....) but winters are killing us. I also don't feel there are ANY opportunities for the kids here. It's extremely sad.

Thank you for your help everyone.

[pattypaw]

Oh by the way, still just thinking of Texas but not sure - worried about the heat and humidity still - it's a pain when you have to worry so much about the weather. I didn't care when I was younger.

Thanks again everyone for your help.

[Westerntraveler]

If you want somewhere in Texas that's not humid go to places like San Angelo and the Trans-Pecos like El Paso.

[Bobloblawslawblog]

The only, and I mean only parts of Texas that are far enough away from the Gulf of Mexico's sphere of influence to experience a true lack of regular humidity would be the Trans-Pecos area of far-West Texas, and the panhandle.

Whatever little bit of difference in the dew points and humidity levels between the major cities that aren't in the two areas I mentioned above are pretty insignificant. Perhaps to someone who is acclimated to Houston, cities like San Antonio or Fort Worth will feel a bit drier, but to someone from pretty much anywhere in the Western U.S., Houston and San Antonio will feel equally muggy.

If you want to live in a Texas city without humidity, your options will pretty much be limited to El Paso, Midland-Odessa, Lubbock, or Amarillo. If you don't mind a really small city, then there's Big Spring. Even cities like San Angelo and Abilene can get pretty muggy sometimes, relative to the Western U.S.

[explorer2014]

Don't know if anyone has mentioned this already but Big Bend area is not humid, at least in my experience. Try Alpine. Might be a bit small and a bit isolated but probably not humid.

[pattypaw]

Thank you everyone for your help - it has helped me quite a bit.