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Seattles is worse. Why? Clouds and rain. Clouds are depressing, and you cant really do much in the rain. At least in MPLS there is decent sun, and tons of winter sports to partake in. Plus, its more fun sliding around in the snow if you know car control. Every parking lot and corner turns into a mini drift session.
There's mountains to go to in Seattle if you want snow and to enjoy winter sports...at least you can live somewhere milder with that option. Minny has you stuck with awful temperatures and buried in snow for months on end.
So what. Is it pure misery? Not hardly. Is it cold? Not compared to my winters back east. So to me it wasn't that cold. What's depressing to me is not seeing color. Or plant life. Or continued daytime temps below freezing. Seattle winters are a breeze imo. Quite lovely in fact.
It's so ridiculous for you or anyone else to try and almost force people that live or lived back East to admit that winters are pure misery when it just isn't for me. I'll take Northern winters over any place in the PNW.
There's mountains to go to in Seattle if you want snow and to enjoy winter sports...at least you can live somewhere milder with that option. Minny has you stuck with awful temperatures and buried in snow for months on end.
Its not always mega-cold or super snowy in MPLS. But kids there can at least go sledding, skiing, skating, snowmobiling, play ice hockey, etc, in their own backyards (if applicable).
Seattle is sunny during the Summer. And its Winters are very mild. More to the point, it is no more overcast during the Winter than much of the country. With the exception of South Florida, Hawaii and Southern California, most of the US is overcast during Winter.
Seattle earns its cloudy/rainy rep in the Fall and Spring. When other cities are seeing the sun peek out around April, Seattle is still looking at day after day of gray clouds and drizzle well into June.
But since we're talking about Winter weather let's look at the averages (all numbers in Fahrenheit):
Avg high in Seattle in January is 46 degrees. Avg high in Minneapolis in January is 22.
Avg low in Seattle in January is 36 degrees. Avg low in Minneapolis in January is 4.
FOUR.
And the averages obviously don't tell the whole story. Any given day in Dec, Jan, Feb, or Mar in Minneapolis the high might be -5. Or worse.
When the high is -5, who cares if it's sunny out? Going out on the town, walking for blocks and blocks through a city in -5 degree weather is far more miserable than walking around in the mid 40s with cloud cover.
There, fixed it for ya.
But in all fairness, actually even SoCal and Hawaii get their rainy seasons during the wintertime (even if Hawaii's rain is a warm, tropical one).
Its not always mega-cold or super snowy in MPLS. But kids there can at least go sledding, skiing, skating, snowmobiling, play ice hockey, etc, in their own backyards (if applicable).
I guess mega-cold is relative to the person. For me, that's 39F and below. Which, for the vast majority of the Twin Cities from November-March, it is. And yes, kids can play in snow...but let's not act like Seattle never gets snow. It does. And it also has the nearby mountains for winter recreation. Seattle has the option--you can live in milder weather and not have to deal with shoveling snow every morning or frigid temps day in and day out. But if you want snow, besides the occasional snowfall and cold snap in the city, you can just go up to the mountains and have fun there. In the Twin Cities, there's no options.
Granted, I think both places have bad winters--Seattle is just too gloomy and Twin Cities are WAY too cold and snowy. But if I had to choose, I'd take Seattle simply because it's warmer and there isn't as much snow. Plus, I think Seattle's lush greenery is more appealing than the ugly bare trees the Twin Cities are stuck with in winter.
The only thing that can redeem those hideous bare branches is snow or ice gathering on them, and even that gets old after a while.
The snow didn't melt at all last winter in coastal New England. From mid December to March/April we had snow cover.
I can't think of a single activity that 45 degrees or drizzle would improve. You can't swim or barbecue. You can't snowmobile or play ice hockey. 45 degrees is around the right temperature to annoy people who enjoy summer rec and annoy those who enjoy winter rec. It's a lose-lose for both.
What I'm trying to get an answer to is what do you do in 45 degrees with a 50% chance of mist that you don't have to drive an hour to do and how does the fact that it's 45 with possible mist improve it?
Last edited by joeyg2014; 12-10-2014 at 12:13 PM..
The snow didn't melt at all last winter in coastal New England. From mid December to March/April we had snow cover.
I can't think of a single activity that 45 degrees or drizzle would improve. You can't swim or barbecue. You can't snowmobile or play ice hockey. 45 degrees is around the right temperature to annoy people who enjoy summer rec and annoy those who enjoy winter rec. It's a lose-lose for both.
What I'm trying to get an answer to is what do you do in 45 degrees with a 50% chance of mist that you don't have to drive an hour to do and how does the fact that it's 45 with possible mist improve it?
The main problem with your reasoning is you assume it's raining or drizzling all the time. And you're being generous to Minneapolis by assuming while it's cold, the sun is out.
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