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I would choose WA since it's my 2nd favorite state after GA, but NC is not too far behind. As others mentioned NC has Raleigh/Triangle as the secondary city while WA is more of a mono-metro state, but Seattle > Charlotte. For climate I prefer the Piedmont region as it's humid but milder compared to the coastal areas of the Southeast. The Blue Ridge/Smokies of Western NC are beautiful but cannot compare to the Cascades, Olympics, and Mt. Rainier.
My sister got her PhD at the Doook medical school and has been in Vancouver BC ever since. My leisure interests are skiing and salt water. Washington wins for me easily based on proximity to my sister, skiing, and sailing around the San Juans where my sister has a summer house just north of there on Galiano.
The astounding amount of money being injected into the University of Washington should get it to world class university level in another decade or two. At the moment, Duke and UNC are a clear win. I don’t think that will be true in 2040.
There's also a difference in accessibility. Western Washington's landscape is easily accessible from metro Seattle. The Sound, Mount Rainier, Cascades and Olympics are easily visible and accessible throughout the Seattle metro area.
This is the kind of scenery well within metro Seattle (of the South Sound, own photo from this past weekend). Yeah Montana is nice, but getting there from any metro area greater than 1 million people isn't exactly easy.
I think an objective person can agree that short of Yosemite, this isn't exactly that common. It was hard for me to find even decent hiking places in the Triangle area in NC.
Really hard to beat that scenery for a major city.
I have only been to Washington once on a road trip through Rainier and down the coast. Its similar to western NC , and I assume its not as cold as NC in the winter , but they also get more rain than NC and more gloom. NC has better weather overall. I would pick washington over NC for outdoorsy stuff though, but again its a close call. I personally think Charlotte and east of there is bland. Western NC is where the beauty is.
North Carolina Average rainfall is around 47" Average, annually.
Washington State Average rainfall is 39" Average, annually.
Therefore, North Carolina gets more rainfall.
Washington also has desert, so parts of the state have as little as 4" to 8" per year, similar to some parts of Arizona and California; Washington has a greater range of rainfall across locations in the state, ranging from the aforementioned 4-8" of rainfall to more than 100" in town like Forks.
North Carolina Average rainfall is around 47" Average, annually.
Washington State Average rainfall is 39" Average, annually.
Therefore, North Carolina gets more rainfall.
Washington also has desert, so parts of the state have as little as 4" to 8" per year, similar to some parts of Arizona and California; Washington has a greater range of rainfall across locations in the state, ranging from the aforementioned 4-8" of rainfall to more than 100" in town like Forks.
Like England, the issue isn’t the total amount of rain, but the total amount of rainy days. Raleigh gets more rain than Seattle, but has 40% more sunny days.
Also worth noting, Seattle has one of the better climates in western Washington as it sits in the rain shadow. I'm in Olympia and we get 50" of rain + more rainy and cloudy days. And doing average rainfall for the entire state is kinda silly as the western half of the state is a completely different climate compared to the east due to the Cascades.
Last edited by fluffydelusions; 06-09-2021 at 12:17 PM..
Overall, North Carolina is a prettier state than Washington. While Washington has dramatic scenery in its western third, most of the state is hideous and looks like inland California.
Overall, North Carolina is a prettier state than Washington. While Washington has dramatic scenery in its western third, most of the state is hideous and looks like inland California.
The Eastern 2/3 of NC look like any flat region of America.
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