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My wife and I are thinking bout check out Idaho as a place to move the family.
I have spent many a winter in the North East but my wife has never even seen snow, much less spent a winter in the woods at -20 degrees with 10ft of snow around her.
My question is are there micro climates in Idaho that might be less harsh during the winter months?
The Boise area tends to be the banana belt. Don't let that mislead you though as they do get snow, freezing rain and sleet, just not as bad or as cold as the rest of us.
There are several micro-climates here. Several Idaho 'cities' (out here, any place with a population of 5,000 qualifies) lie in the bottoms of canyons and holes. Depending on the elevation some are notably warmer year round than other cities.
Salmon is one. It lies right on the edge of Idaho's central wilderness area in the bottom of a little hole, surrounded by mountains. Lewiston, in north Idaho is another. It lies in the bottom of a canyon where the canyon widens, and is almost at sea level. The Boise area is low, as are the other nearby cities and towns, Caldwell, Nampa and many smaller places.
In general, N. Idaho's elevation is lower than S. Idaho. It's slightly more humid in the north, and the country is more alpine than the south. Southern Idaho is all high steppe, and dryer, and is slightly colder. Humidity all over is much lower than in the east.
The very cold temps never last for long. Zero to -20 temps almost always last no longer than a day to a week before it warms up. A typical winter's temps hover around zero to high 30's, sometimes into the 40's. The thing about S. Idaho winters is they are typically sunny. Snow here is drier than it is back east, and winter humidity is often very low. N. Idaho is much the same, except there is less sun in wintertime and more overcast.
Living here does take getting used to. Some folks have no trouble at all, and others do. Much of it depends on how much a person gets out and enjoys the wintertime activities here.
Lewiston is the place that leaps to my mind as having a "micro-climate" that tends to be milder than the surrounding areas. It's at a very low elevation, and averages only about a foot of snow total per year, compared to Moscow, just 30 miles north, which averages about four feet of snow total each year.
Southwestern Idaho is "high desert" and doesn't get nearly as much snow as North Idaho, despite being a higher elevation. There is often enough wind outside of town to make snow drifts though. Boise averages roughly 30 inches of snow per year total.
Southeastern Idaho is still generally less humid than North Idaho, but towns like Idaho Falls get a little more snow than the southwestern areas. There is also generally quite a bit of wind in the immediate area surrounding Idaho Falls.
Agreed about Lewiston. Much milder during the winter, and hotter during the summer.
Idaho in general has many different climates. From the coldest of the cold (Challis, Hailey), to much warmer climates around Boise, Lewiston, even Twin Falls and Pocatello, though Poky may be borderline listed here.
Pocatello is always a few degrees warmer than the rest of the towns along the Yellowstone corridor of the Upper Snake River Valley, and Ashton, at the end of the line, is always a few degrees the coldest. Poky is in a hole, and Ashton is on the lower slope of the Island Park caldera. Island Park is much, much higher than the valley... at least 1000 feet higher. I think I.P. could be called a microclimate, as it typically gets about 12 feet of snow and can get as much as 30 feet.
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