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Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tusco
Colorado, Oregon, and Washington were the hardest decisions for my map.
I'm mostly familiar with California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, and none of them can be classified as cold or hot climate. They are all big enough and with diverse topography to have parts hot and parts cold. Here in Washington, for example, the northern part and mountains are cold climate, but the southeast part is hot climate (Tri-Cities, Yakima). The west part where we live is neither, but more of a mild climate having no extremes of hot or cold normally. I will say though, that in our 27 years here in Sammamish WA 2021 has been crazy. Normal summer high is 85, winter low 20. This year we hit 114F in June, and Monday a low of 9F.
I'm mostly familiar with California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington, and none of them can be classified as cold or hot climate. They are all big enough and with diverse topography to have parts hot and parts cold. Here in Washington, for example, the northern part and mountains are cold climate, but the southeast part is hot climate (Tri-Cities, Yakima). The west part where we live is neither, but more of a mild climate having no extremes of hot or cold normally. I will say though, that in our 27 years here in Sammamish WA 2021 has been crazy. Normal summer high is 85, winter low 20. This year we hit 114F in June, and Monday a low of 9F.
The same thing can be said for pretty much any western state. Due to varied topography there are quite a bit of temperature and climate extremes in pretty much all the western states.
Below is a pretty typical average snowfall map taken with satellite data in winter. Gives you a pretty good idea what is considered a cold state. I definitely lump the Northern Rockies, Pacific Northwest, Upper Midwest and Northeast as cold states.
However that doesn’t tell the whole picture as I believe you need to look at summer time temps as well. I don’t classify California as a hot state, because it is not subtropical at all. In fact Northern California is the same latitude as NY and large swaths of the state receives extreme snowfalls.
I would not consider the lower midwestern states (such as Missouri and Oklahoma) and states south of NY as “cold places†despite winter extremes at times. I would not classify any area south of DC as “coldâ€â€¦. They have very long hot summers. They also don’t have consistent snow pack and there summer time average are much to hot and humid.
By the end of spring you can clearly see where the snow pack has retreated. Outside of the PNW, Rockies and extreme NE most of the United States warming up quite a bit. Higher elevations of the intermountain west and PNW are still snow covered well into June and pretty much uninhabitable.
Last edited by Thealpinist; 12-29-2021 at 09:44 AM..
CO is absolutely not hot. Everything in the continental US is downhill from CO and elevation makes places colder. Much of the mountains outside of a couple valleys (where the people are) is essentially subarctic climate. And even in the hottest part of the state, the arkansas valley on the plains, it'd be a stretch to call it HOT.
Daytime highs can get up there for CO, but that's balanced by low nightime temps. Daily mean is quite low for Colorado, and the fact that it's dry doesn't really change that much on the feels like temp in the winter.
That pretty much lines up with todays current snow coverage. Pretty obvious what states are cold states. This map pretty much looks the same every winter. Outside the Mountain West, Pacific Northwest, and upper Midwest and extreme northeast consistent snow coverage in winter is not common (for more than a few weeks) in the lower 48 and is mostly lacking in the Southeast, lower Midwest and Southern California.
Last edited by Thealpinist; 12-14-2022 at 07:17 PM..
This is ridiculous. Almost every US state experiences both significant heat and significant cold with a handful of exceptions.
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