How Many People That Move South for the Weather End Up Moving Back Home? (salary, to live)

[annie_himself]

Originally Posted by whereiend

Kind of seems like different people have different weather preferences?

I know a lot of northerners on here want a "four season climate" (also known as "four seasons that match the four seasons I am used to").

Personally, I don't care about seasons and just want the maximum number of days where walking outside feels nice and the minimum number of days where it does not. For me a dry 90 degree day feels quite nice, whereas 50 is annoyingly cold. I also really like the sun being out. Ultimately my preference is CA > SW > SE > Mountain West > PNW > NE > Midwest.

I respect that others feel differently!

How do you weigh the heat of a SE summer day and a dry sunny mountain west winter day?

I personally prefer sunny and 50 to 90 and humid.

[bluescreen73]

I didn't move to DFW for the weather, but the long, ungodly hot/humid summers and crap scenery were the two main reasons I left. If I'm gonna sweat my ass off outside it'd better be because I'm trudging up a 7-15% grade and not because I walked 25 feet to check the mail.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Not me, I spent the first 18 years of my life in NY, moved southwest to Phoenix after I graduated high school, and still here 19 years later

[JMatl]

Originally Posted by NoHyping

I find the same posters every chance they get degrade and lessen the North for winters and claim all is majority gloom and doom. Then boast the Cheap South is best in every post. They think saying they lived in the North for a bit and mock things even other then weather.

One can keep moving as a location gets pricier. Large Southern cities and their suburbs especially are seeing rising cost and taxation for a reason. Infrastructure is costly and adding more then rebuilding never ends. Sprawl cost more also. One can keep moving and BOAST how much money they save in the South. But never admit the lifestyle is continually form much of the year air-conditioned home and building to air-conditioned car to be outside for any part of the day especially if sunny.

That is fine if that is your choice and save on taxes to boast to pay for it and heat cost in the North are no picnic either. But i LOVE my days of no AIR and OUT and IN with NO air-conditioner. Even on the days heat and humidity are greater. I prefer still no air with just enough air circulating to stay decent. Some sweat at home is easily washed off if I go out and I still choose as much to walk as I can.

I Abhor winter too, but also know much of the world has it and I know I can tolerate it also as Spring does come and summers. We are one of the countries in the world we can have varied climates and wealthy enough for those who want can own air-conditioning everywhere. I prefer mine limited. Nothing to do with cost and saving money. Even if we put it on it is just enough to cool and especially take humidity out of the house. Then off it is. Nights stay 60s till the dog days of summer that are not the longest part.

Just went though a hotter week but mostly sunny. Humidity higher but not intense. I was just fine. Now cooler and low humidity again and LOVE THE CHANGES that do come and NEVER are solid Hot and Humid for months. So WHY SOME MAKE THREADS NORTH VS SOUTH ON WEATHER Always? I do not know. Both aspects are not optimum for the most part.

Tire of these North vs South comments that maintain the North is just dreariness and winters such a scourge there is a low quality of life. Gets old..... and why some do return home to the North. Not all of course but more then some think. For some being more a Sunbird if retired is the best of both places. That is a great option for many too.

This is so full of contradictions it's ridiculous. And is it possible for you to post ANYTHING without attempting to put the South in a negative light, no matter the subject?

As much as you claim to not like these type of threads, you always post in them. If they bother you so much, just stay out of them.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

Originally Posted by Pine to Vine

I stayed in the south for many years because I had a great job and built a good life there. As soon as I retired, however, I headed back north, with the weather being one of the key reasons. I used to tell myself that the horrid summers "down south" were an equal evil to the hard winters up north. Not true:

1. Winters may be nice(r) in the south, but the sun sets at 5, so there is not much daylight to enjoy it. I'll take the nice LONG and PLEASANT summer days up north where I can actually be outside and not sweat my butt off.

2. Put on a good winer coat, hats and gloves, and I am fine to face a northern winter. There is no cover for that wretched, constant, oppressive humidity that grips the south for five months minimum.

3. Rather than the spring you mentioned with blooming bulbs and trees and the glorious return of life, southern springs signal pollen drops and mold. And before you know it, it's late April and that oppressive summer I mentioned has started.

4. Kiss fall foliage all but goodbye in the south.

5. Bugs. Everywhere. Including in your house.

I suspect most northerners who elected to move south for the weather did so after winter visits. I wonder how many would have moved if their first trip south was in August? For all those people who moved south and love the weather - bless you. I will never go back south to live.

We have some deciduous trees here in Phoenix, and they don't change color until the end of November/beginning of December, leaves fall off by mid December then bloom again in early February.

But most of our trees are either evergreen or of course palm trees (which are also evergreen)

[Citykid3785]

We moved away from the Twin Cities in favor of Atlanta several years back, and we prefer the life down here, and certainly the weather. If we ever moved back (not currently in the plans), it would have nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with being close to family and childhood friends.

[whereiend]

Originally Posted by annie_himself

How do you weigh the heat of a SE summer day and a dry sunny mountain west winter day?

I personally prefer sunny and 50 to 90 and humid.

50 and sunny in Denver is quite nice, but obviously Denver gets a lot colder than that. 90 depends on just how humid. I usually find that 90 degree days in Austin are quite nice, but a very humid 90 is miserable and more equivalent to peak summer weather.

[Bert_from_back_East]

“Cold” is relative. I lived in the Fort Lauderdale area for over a decade, and after another decade in the Los Angeles area, I’m still “cold.” And I’m a native New Englander!

[Justabystander]

Originally Posted by Buckeye in SC

I grew up in NE Ohio and moved to Columbia almost 4 years ago.

Some of those of you have moved back north are over-exaggerating things a little...even here in 'Famously hot Columbia' we do not have "a minimum of 5 months of oppressive humidity & heat" - it's more like 8-10 weeks...from mid-June through August, plan on mid-90s during the day & mid-70s at night. I don't mind the heat in the day (there's these things called air conditioning & pools that seem to help a lot to deal with it), but I admit, not a big fan of it being 80 degrees at midnight...thankfully, the majority of us get to sleep though through most of the night!

Yes, the temperature rose to 85-89 over the weekend here, but that was close to record highs for this time of year. Today through this weekend is more normal (75-80 during the day w/minimal humidity and upper 40s at night) for this time of year. May will be mid-80s during the day/low 60s at night (on average) - typical of summer days up north.

And no fall foliage? Sure, it doesn't happen in October like it does up north, but the leaves still change here and offer lots of pretty colors (typically around Thanksgiving is the peak).

I will give you that bugs are nasty here - I HATE bugs! But there are things to prevent them, we have only had one time (a couple years ago in early Fall) where we had an issue, about once a week we'd walk into the kitchen in the morning or middle of the night to find a lovely palmetto bug on the floor greeting us <sarcasm>...but spraying the interior walls & also around the exterior of our house w/Home Defense spray (costs about $9 or $10 for a gallon) eliminated that problem, and now I just spray twice a year - just did it this past week, and will do it again probably in mid-September - and have had virtually no problems since. Of course every once in a while we will have a bug show up in the house, but that happened up north too.

And we moved the last week of July, it was 90 and hot the day we moved in, so we didn't make a rash decision in the middle of winter!

Compare that to Ohio - where there are literally 5 months of cold and grey (November-March), not to mention snow. I will trade off 8-10 weeks of heat for 5 months of that any day! I always tell our family & friends back home who insist on coming to visit during the summer (mostly so they can go to the beach) that they pick the wrong time to visit - in fact, we usually make at least 2 trips to Ohio during the summer as I will totally agree that July & August are far more enjoyable there than here....however, the other 10 months, I will gladly take the weather here over there. It makes me laugh when I see all my facebook friends back in Ohio whining non-stop about how they are so sick of the weather (for instance when it was mid-40s and raining yesterday in the middle of spring) while it was in the low 70s here and sunny.

We didn't move just b/c of the weather, but it sure was taken into account when we decided to move out of Ohio. The main reason was job opportunities though, honestly, had we had them in NE Ohio, we probably would still be there.

I had business in Columbia in July, and while I found the area we were in interesting, there is no way I would ever want to live there. No way. After visiting the restaurants ( i did enjoy them ) and the campus of the University of South Carolina, I found the heat oppressive, and the culture too different for me. The best part was visiting the nice small and fairly empty airport to go back home. More power to you.

[MassVt]

Using middling-winter cities like Philly and Cincinnati are not the best when making comparisons. These places aren't really that cold in the first place. Better to use examples like Chicago, Buffalo or Minneapolis when comparing to southern cities, to give a real contrast.