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Where could you possibly live where you would need chains? I get 200" of snow per year in my driveway. I have an AWD car with snow tires for the convenience of not having to shovel but a FWD car with snow tires is fine. If you don't like scraping (and you don't have a garage), you put a cover over your windshield and pull it off before you start the car.
I ski. The best snow city? Salt Lake. Assuming the canyon isn't closed for avalanche blasting, it's 20 minutes up to Snowbird for the powder day. The city doesn't get much snow but Snowbird-Alta see 500+ inches of snow per winter. Reno is a pretty good ski option. Squaw is less than an hour and Mt Rose is close. Ski Santa Fe is a fun little ski area. That wouldn't be a bad place to live.
The worst places for winter driving are southern cities with freezing rain. Nobody has snow tires. There's no such thing as a sand truck or salt truck. It's paralyzed until it melts. My car and a heated garage, there's nowhere urban with regular snowfall in the lower 48 where I'd have a problem getting around in snow. There's good plowing. The roads are pre-treated before storms. It's black pavement on interstate highways and the major arteries the day after the storm.
While I grew up a flatlander in So. California, my husband and I lived in Crestline, Ca. which is up in the San Bernardino mountains for a couple of years almost 20 years ago. We only had a front wheel drive, and used Spider Spikes on the front wheels and they were a lot more convenient than chains for sure.
Winters were short, but the terrain was very alpine and snow could really pile up fast. We commuted up and down the mountain every day for work Monday through Friday, and we only needed them once in a while when we hit a snowstorm at the elevation where Highway Patrol made sure everyone had chains if they didn't have 4 wheel drive and the roads weren't cleared yet.
We moved back down before deciding to get a Subaru Outback. I'm pretty sure they would have let us through with one of those.
So my experience living in snow is pretty limited, but glad we DID have the experience. We're now on the hunt for another location, and I'm pretty sure we're going to end up in a snowy area. Hubby and I pretty much have decided (for now) that we'd rather do snow and cold than extreme heat like Phoenix or heavy humidity where I feel I can't breath with my mild asthma. I already know the cold doesn't bother me as much.
Sounds for sure that it's best to live where a city is used to getting snow because they're equipped for it.
One of my concerns was power outages as Hubby would be working from home. Already called a few places we were interested in about that, and even in Rapid City and Idaho Falls, it didn't seem to be a problem, and if it did go down, they got it up and running pretty quickly.
Also power outages can happen anywhere, even when I lived in LA, we'd have them on occasion during heavy downpours, and up in Northern California where my brother lives in Shasta County, as well as other more populated areas up there, they turned everybody's power off for days on purpose last September as a preventative measure against fires. That was a mess that was!!
I lived in Syracuse, NY a year. The lake effect snow was rough, but the cloud cover even worse. Even at night, the skies were white. Strange. Never experienced that anywhere else.
I lived in Syracuse, NY a year. The lake effect snow was rough, but the cloud cover even worse. Even at night, the skies were white. Strange. Never experienced that anywhere else.
Winter nights with snow on the ground, and especially with clouds in the sky, can be nearly as bright as dawn or dusk skies, even brighter than summer days with thick storm cloud cover. Those nights make the short winter days feel longer. I always preferred winter days and nights with snow on the ground.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nanny Goat
I lived in Syracuse, NY a year. The lake effect snow was rough, but the cloud cover even worse. Even at night, the skies were white. Strange. Never experienced that anywhere else.
I grew up in Rochester where in November and December, the sun would maybe come out once a week. Horrible #VitaminDDeficiency
I grew up in Rochester where in November and December, the sun would maybe come out once a week. Horrible #VitaminDDeficiency
Ya, Rochester is a lot like Syracuse from what I heard. I didn't think the cloud cover would bother me, but it did. I grew up south of Albany and it wasn't that cloudy there. But, bad enough!
While I grew up a flatlander in So. California, my husband and I lived in Crestline, Ca. which is up in the San Bernardino mountains for a couple of years almost 20 years ago. We only had a front wheel drive, and used Spider Spikes on the front wheels and they were a lot more convenient than chains for sure.
Winters were short, but the terrain was very alpine and snow could really pile up fast. We commuted up and down the mountain every day for work Monday through Friday, and we only needed them once in a while when we hit a snowstorm at the elevation where Highway Patrol made sure everyone had chains if they didn't have 4 wheel drive and the roads weren't cleared yet.
We moved back down before deciding to get a Subaru Outback. I'm pretty sure they would have let us through with one of those.
So my experience living in snow is pretty limited, but glad we DID have the experience. We're now on the hunt for another location, and I'm pretty sure we're going to end up in a snowy area. Hubby and I pretty much have decided (for now) that we'd rather do snow and cold than extreme heat like Phoenix or heavy humidity where I feel I can't breath with my mild asthma. I already know the cold doesn't bother me as much.
Sounds for sure that it's best to live where a city is used to getting snow because they're equipped for it.
One of my concerns was power outages as Hubby would be working from home. Already called a few places we were interested in about that, and even in Rapid City and Idaho Falls, it didn't seem to be a problem, and if it did go down, they got it up and running pretty quickly.
Also power outages can happen anywhere, even when I lived in LA, we'd have them on occasion during heavy downpours, and up in Northern California where my brother lives in Shasta County, as well as other more populated areas up there, they turned everybody's power off for days on purpose last September as a preventative measure against fires. That was a mess that was!!
Okay, I'm rambling now...
Thanks for the reply!
California has chain restrictions because everyone lives in the warm flats, doesn't have snow tires, and has pretty much zero winter driving skill. Lots of people drive from Denver up I-70 in FWD cars with snow tires. They occasionally have flashing signs recommending 4wd or chains but they don't have CALTRAN road blocks turning away FWD cars with best-of-breed snow tires that have no problem climbing up to the Eisenhower tunnel at 11,000 feet.
I once had a Vermont license plate VW GTI with Nokians where I was waived through the CALTRAN chain restriction road block on I-80 in Emigrant Gap on my way to Tahoe. It was just normal snow-covered roads like I drive on all the time at home.
Given its higher elevation and location in the primary Lake Erie lake effect snow belt (as the Lake Erie shore bends northeast west of Cleveland, westerly winds can travel a greater distance over the width of Lake Erie, unlike in Cleveland and westward), snowfall totals in Chardon are much greater than in Cleveland the western portions of Greater Cleveland.
Snowfall totals in Chardon and elsewhere in Cleveland are different than snow accumulations. With temperatures often above freezing these days with warmer winters due to climate change, snow often doesn't accumulate on paved surfaces, even in Chardon. Snowfall totals include snow that melts upon landing on a paved surface.
I live in the snow belt north of Chardon, and have shoveled just a few times (unnecessarily for a few inches) and used my snow blower just once this winter. These are NOT the harsh winters of my youth when sometimes we ran out of places to put shoveled snow.
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