Would nebraskans accept a CA transplant? (Omaha: low crime, tornado, tax)

[future texan]

thank you petite! glad to know that we won't be scorned!! was suprised to hear about the car registration and property taxes...wow, am I glad I found this forum...have learned so much...

[future texan]

earnie fan, I think I will pass on the football sized hail!!! I bet the homeowners insurance is bad too!!..but am looking forward to the tornados!! my dream house would have a pole in the back yard with a T-138 on it!! (or whatever sirens are out there)....you will find me outside instead of inside, during bad weather..unless it is dark!

[mattpoulsen]

FutureTexan,

Home owners insurance isn't any more expensive here than anywhere else...in fact its probably lower. We have severe weather here, but the large scale effects you're thinking about are once a year events that occur at a very small location. Football sized hail is an absolute oddity! Tornadoes occur but usually they are doing so out in the vast open prairie somewhere. Yes, occasionally severe weather does cause property damage, but its a very local event. We have numerous thunderstorms run through a year, but the vast majority cause little to know property damage...its really just a statistical argument...most of Nebraska is empty land.

That said, we have no large scale disasters that occur here. No earthquakes, no hurricanes, no broken levies. So, we get an occasional tornado touchdown, but it takes out a handful of houses not an entire coastline.

As a result, insurance is lower here than much of the U.S.

[future texan]

thanks for the info......how hot does it get in the summer?? my dad was born and raised in Fairbury, and said it would be hot in the summer, and cold, with a constant wind in the winter.....how hot does it get, and how bad is the humidity???

[mattpoulsen]

Future Texan,

Your dad isn't a liar! It does get quite hot in the summer, its not a shocker to have hot streaks of 90+ weather for several days in a row. Also, the humidity does get pretty high. The worst months are July and August. As far as winter, it can get pretty chilly, no doubt, but its not as horrific as many people might think it is. We get regular snow in the winter, but, because its Nebraska, it'll typically melt off within a week. Sometimes people tend to think our weather is identical to North Dakota. Some are often surprised that our summers can be uncomfortably hot.

The easiest way to describe Nebraska weather...it constantly changes! We're stuck in the middle of a giant land mass (North America) and have no system to regulate our weather fronts (mountains or oceans). As a result, sometimes our weather comes in from Canada, resulting in cold weather, and sometimes we get fronts coming up from the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in hot humid weather.

It isn't a surprise at all to have below freezing temperatures one day and the next to have 50 to 60 degree weather. In fact, just this week we had mid-90 weather and the next day it was in the low 70s. One of the sayings describing Nebraska weather, "If you don't like it...stay a while it'll change".

[AZ_singlemother]

Originally Posted by Earniefan

You may want to look up pictures of tornado dammage online in rural Nebraska before you move. It may be more "excitement" than you can handle. Also, for hail excitement look up Aurora, they had football size hail a couple years ago, they hold the record for the largest hail in the U.S. if not the world. It was going right through people's roofs, pretty crazy.

And compare the tornado scenes to the earthquake aftermath, not to mention flash flooding, mudslides, and wild fires in S Cali.

[future texan]

I have lived through a few big quakes (enjoyed those too!) and live in a area with yearly wild fire threats...(last year being evacuated)...so am quite familiar with the damage they can cause...but it is a childhood dream to live in an area with severe storms and tornado threats...and it's either now or never to get out there and make it happen...

[future texan]

M-poulsen....yep, my dad would always tell about the heat, and how the sun would come up "like a giant fireball" after a nightly rain...and he too, always said that the snow wouldn't lay around very long......I always enjoyed the 'fairbury' stories, and even went back to check it out in '96...had a good time seeing all the towns along the way..we even took a swing on the largest porch swing in hebron!....was saddened to hear about deshler being flattened by the tornado though...

[AZ_singlemother]

Originally Posted by future texan

I have lived through a few big quakes (enjoyed those too!) and live in a area with yearly wild fire threats...(last year being evacuated)...so am quite familiar with the damage they can cause...but it is a childhood dream to live in an area with severe storms and tornado threats...and it's either now or never to get out there and make it happen...

You would be a better fit for Florida.

[future texan]

have thought about florida's 'lightening alley', but after being there twice, in february, and feeling how hot it can be, (85 and humid on the beach one day) we know that the summers would be torture...my son in law grew up there, and said it is unbearable in the summer months...