Nebraska weather is crazy! (mortgage, home, buying)

[lemmings4life]

Okay, Nebraska has its good points I'm sure (rural, safe, quiet, etc), but why would anyone want to move here? I'm totally not trying to be a jerk or rant or anything at all, so *please* don't take it that way! It's just that...there's nothing here... unless you like fishing, hunting, and just being bored. I mean, not that I require a nightlife or huge party or city scene to be entertained, quite the contrary - I'm a rural kind of girl, I hate living in or near cities. I mean unless you are brought here by farming, family ties, or a career move I just can't see the motivation behind moving here of all places from elsewhere! I was born and raised here (and I am still here I might add, but only because I can't get ~out~ haha). Other states have so much more to offer in the scenery department (mountains, forests, oceans, versus grass, corn fields, soy bean fields, and more grass) and the weather here is atrocious (110 in the summer with 100% humidity and -40 degrees below zero in the winter with windchill values - I do love the winters here tho! Bring on the snow!) Entertainment wise, there is nothing to do or to see... I've been to every "tourist attraction" there is in this state (yes, including carhenge, toadstool, indian caves, niobrarra park and tubing, fort Rob, etc, etc,) as well as to 40 of the 50 other states in the US and it seems that most of them have so much more to offer in the outdoor activities, scenery, decent weather, and beauty department.
What makes people put up with the extreme climate (literally I mean that's like a 150 degree temperature fluctuation throughout the year), and the nothingness here? Aside from the previous reasons (farming, family ties, career moves), what do you think makes people want to move here? I'm confused! Thanks

[Radical347]

Sounds like you're just over it, that's all.

[SCGranny]

Actually, it sounds like you are young and just discovered City-Data!

Maybe when you are older you will appreciate the wide-open spaces, the warmth, honesty, and friendliness of the people, the fresh clean air, the pure sweet water, and the lack of forced entertainment. Or maybe you will appreciate the lower cost of living, the simple essence of a local melodrama or singing group, the long silent nights or the brilliant sunlit days unclouded by smog. Or you might even appreciate the one-finger wave as opposed to people using 'another' finger as a matter of course, or the fact that most folks will stop and ask you if you need a ride while out walking or when your car breaks down. Or the fact that if you do break down out in the middle of nowhere, that strangers will take you into their home to spend the night without question, or that the local radio station announces that "Someone lost a new roll of barbed wire at the corner of ___ and ___; if that rolled out of your pickup, please go pick it up!" - without worrying that some thief will beat the owner to it. You might someday appreciate going to a high school that doesn't have gangs selling drugs to junior high kids or 'initiating' them into gangs by beating them or teaching them to hurt or kill others 'for fun'. Or you might even appreciate that Nebraska as a whole didn't get caught up in the housing bubble; that most folks had the common sense to not fall for a balloon mortgage or ARM with their eyes wide shut, or most other scams perpetrated by individuals or groups, and then scream for their government to bail them out. Or you might discover that slow and thoughtful common sense far outweighs hysterical emotionalism in the long run; be it in your social life, in politics, or in your romantic life. You may even discover that constant entertainment is not and can never be a way of life, not even if you live right outside of Disney World; such things are fake and phony glitz and glamor, and contribute nothing to your mental, emotional, and physical growth.

The weather varies in Nebraska; you have the east with its high humidity and the west with the endless roaring winds that blow dry summer air and snow with equal impunity. You have snow piled up in cities by multiple plows; out in the country the sand trucks and plows crash through sudden, house-high drifts just so that the far-back ranchers can eventually make it out to the pavement, even if they sometimes have to wait a week or meet the plows with their tractors halfway. You have cows that stand outside in pouring summer rains or plunge through shoulder-deep snow to get to the rancher spreading hay on the snow crust, or to water where s/he is breaking the ice with a bar at the foot of the windmill. All around you, there are people taking their knowledge, working from sunup to sundown to get the hay baled or the corn in or that radical and stubborn center pivot to deliver just the right amount of water. These conditions make not only for hardy animals but hardy people.

Yes, Nebraska sux; it is terrible and horrible and boring and no one should ever move here. Get out while you can! Flee! Save yourself!

[TheBeagleLady]

SCGranny...I love reading your posts! It almost makes me want to move back to Nebraska. LOL

Obviously the OP is young and bored (wow, that makes me sound old!) and nothing will be good enough. How can you be so bored by rural living, yet hate living by cities? As for the weather, the whole state is not the same. It is much drier in the west with different scenery. Get out and explore or go elsewhere. It's a big country.

I love where I live now, but I miss Eastern Nebraska thunderstorms. There's a lot to be said for huge skies, wide open spaces and extreme weather. The true beauty of Nebraska scenery is not so much on the land (mountains, oceans, etc). It's in the sky.

[SCGranny]

Originally Posted by TheBeagleLady

SCGranny...I love reading your posts! It almost makes me want to move back to Nebraska. LOL

Obviously the OP is young and bored (wow, that makes me sound old!) and nothing will be good enough. How can you be so bored by rural living, yet hate living by cities? As for the weather, the whole state is not the same. It is much drier in the west with different scenery. Get out and explore or go elsewhere. It's a big country.

I love where I live now, but I miss Eastern Nebraska thunderstorms. There's a lot to be said for huge skies, wide open spaces and extreme weather. The true beauty of Nebraska scenery is not so much on the land (mountains, oceans, etc). It's in the sky.

Thanks for your kind words! I do love it here...

And I must agree with you about the skies, too; I have hundreds of pictures of the skies here... from the huge mammatus clouds (which I have never seen before moving here!) through the layers and layers of scudding white summer clouds of cotton candy blowing across an azure carpet, turning pink and orange and red at sunset, to the tumbling and prophetic blizzard clouds, heavy with snow, pushing the wind like large grumbling grey fat men shoving giant grey fat boulders with their stomachs across the ripped-blue-and-white curtain of the sky...

[TheBeagleLady]

Originally Posted by SCGranny

Thanks for your kind words! I do love it here...

And I must agree with you about the skies, too; I have hundreds of pictures of the skies here... from the huge mammatus clouds (which I have never seen before moving here!) through the layers and layers of scudding white summer clouds of cotton candy blowing across an azure carpet, turning pink and orange and red at sunset, to the tumbling and prophetic blizzard clouds, heavy with snow, pushing the wind like large grumbling grey fat men shoving giant grey fat boulders with their stomachs across the ripped-blue-and-white curtain of the sky...

I enjoy reading about your views and perspective, having chosen to move to Nebraska. I find it interesting!

There's not much I find more exciting than the sky when tornado weather is rolling in. It's such a rush! I also love the prairie sunsets, especially in the winter.

I'm now at the foot of the Black Hills, so I still get to enjoy beautiful sunsets and huge skies and open spaces.

[kenshel]

I have to agree with lemmings4life, I have been here for 13 years (OMG) and am planning the days when we can move to the western coast! Yes people are usually friendly, but as soon as you turn your back alot of them have a knife to stick in! We live in a little town full of alcoholics, I don't care when I am at the gas station 6am or 10 pm or any time in between there are always people buying cases of booze! I do enjoy the sky...due to being a small town and not tons of street lights you can see all of the stars and it is amazing, I enjoy lightening storms and weather watching as well. I am a registered nurse, unless I move to a big town my options are limited. Job options are limited all the way around--for my husband and kids, as well. I don't know that I hate it here, but this is NOT wear I want to live forever or where I want to die. My dad does love it here. Everyone has their own taste, their own goals and values and their own opinions to which they are entitled. By the way I am in my 40's so I am not some young person just wanting to complain like poor lemmings4life was accused!

[CountryTrotter]

The weather is crazy indeed. I remember one day I went into work in the morning. It was a beautiful morning. Clear skies, mild temperature. I got off from work in the afternoon and there was like a foot of snow on the ground, cloudy, windy and super cold! I could not believe such a beautiful morning could turn into that.