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Thanks Cathy. It also looks to me that housing is perhaps a little lower in cost for Alamogordo compared to LC. Actually, when I started my considerations over a year ago, Alamogordo was number one based on a visit I made there many years ago. So guess that is a very good starting point for me.
EP has also given a very good argument for summers in NW Il. He is correct in that this summer has been nice. Actually cooler and wetter than normal. We do get the hot and muggy weather, but normally that's only several weeks a year. I will factor that in also.
Its fun to think about these things, but better to check out on a visit. Chilegal suggested this to me right from the beginning and I think she is definitely correct. So I will make a concerted attempt to spend most of the month of January visiting southern NM this winter.
Sounds like a plan to me. Alamo had no real winter last year, but at least it wasn't hot.
I have spent much of my life (young-30s) in Wisconsin / Illinois, and summers are more temperate than sub-5000 feet New Mexico or West Texas (outside of the miserable mosquito factor up here).
With me having spent 27 or so odd years in WI / IL and plenty of summers, plus 4+ summers in Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and El Paso, I will say that the weather in ABQ/LC/EP is laughingly better than up here, but the summers up here are far more temperate temps-wise (again, outside of the d*** mosquitoes up here).
Yeah, days like these *do* happen in Chicago (or Milwaukee, Detroit, Minneapolis, etc.).
It is funny, as visitors by legions always seem to hop into Chicago on days like these, even though they occur maybe once or twice a year.
Milwaukee averages only 9 - NINE! - days at 90 degrees or more for a high PER YEAR...Chicago averages a few more, but not many. Sub-15.
So sure...cities up here do have a handful of miserable days like that per summer, but they also average most days in summer a very cool, pleasant 70s and 80s for highs with many 70s and 60s for lows. Very pleasant.
Again, I far, far, far prefer the climates of ABQ/lower NM/EP, but summer is the one time of year where I will readily admit that the upper Midwest could give the desert areas a run for their money. The only significant area where the desert of NM / West Texas has the advantage is in the significant lack of the mosquitoes up here.
Chicago has a few sweltering days per year. But then there are days like today where, did it even break 80? With the cold breezes off of Lake Michigan, it is very cool and pleasant most of the summer.
Its close. I prefer the hot, baking, dry heat for sure. The humid "heat" of 85 though isn't "hot"...it is just wet and warm. Humid "heat" of the 80s isn't more hot than dry heat...it is just more uncomfortable.
To me, comfort-wise, I think 100 and dry and 85 and humid is pretty comparable in comfort-level. I will cede though that 94 and humid and 100 and dry I would easily go with the 100.
Again though, in the upper Midwest, the days of well into the 90s is few and far between. Why did all of those people die in the Chicago heat wave of, what, 1995? Because those places didn't even have A/C!!! In places like the Southeast, they'd never even consider having apartments, etc., without A/C...it just shows that large, significant "heat waves" are so uncommon in the Midwest that when they do happen, people just aren't used to it!
Well I'm originally from the Midwest and the hot muggy days and nights wore me down plenty. There were evenings so thick, that as kids we'd sleep in the basement just to be able to sleep, even fans didn't help on many days because they just moved the steamy air around. The good thing were the lakes. The lakes and streams make it almost bearable.
I've been to Chicago when it's more sweltering than I can stand, I was surprised once when they said it was only 96 degrees there because it felt worse to me than 115 degrees in Tucson felt. I think the difference is that with arid heat you are not dripping wet from sweat, it's the way the moisture clings to you and keeps your natural system of airconditioning from working. You can run when it's 100 degrees, ride a horse, and everyone stays nice and dry.
Here we also have only a few days every year that would be called hot and only a few hours of those days. A morning can be almost chilly, much of the day only in the 70's and 80's before the mercury climbs.
I don't use airconditioning here, although I have a swamp cooler, because I like the fresh air from an open window and a nice breeze, or a ceiling fan when the breeze isn't enough. For a couple of weeks after it first rains, it gets kind of steamy but a swamp cooler just makes that worse.
I wasn't spared mosquitoes -- they're bad where I live. Desert mosquitoes can be particularly aggressive I think.
Summers though in the Midwest didn't drive me away, it was the long winters that did that. I like the very long days and the good things like canoeing down a river, or the Great Lakes even if the heat and humidity can be oppressive.
Well -- every place has it's pros and cons, the SW can sometimes feel a little on the scorching hot side for a few hours but to me that can be kind of pleasant in itself. Sit under a mulberry tree and drink and iced tea, or get indoors for a couple of hours, or enjoy the outdoors -- I'm kind of sad that May/June is already over.
Yep, the other thing I forgot to mention about the summers in the upper Midwest is how brief they are. You won't get any truly hot days (as few as there are in a year) until June, and by Labor Day weekend, they are over for sure.
Whereas in the SW, summer-type temps are common for 5 months...
Milwaukee, only 80 miles directly north of Chicago and also on the west shoreline of Lake Michigan, hasn't seen 1 - 1! - day of a high at 100 degrees or more since 1995. It has been 13 years since a 100 degree day here! Now Chicago may have hit it once or twice since then (on a day Milwaukee got into the high-90s), but once or twice would be about it.
But yeah, not only are truly *hot* / humid streaks here fairly limited and rare, and broken up by a ton of coolish summer temps, but summer is truly at most - at most - a 3 month affair. Heat just doesn't stick around. Heck, the high today in Chicago is 75! Tomorrow a dry 80.
Summers - mosquitoes withstanding - are just fine here and very nice. It is the winters - the length and intensity - that are something to deal with up here!
I was just up -- in July in the northern part of the Midwest, first it was cold and rainy, one night actually got down in the high 30's --- JULY!!, there were some beautiful days, mixed with rainy days, and it got in the high 80's with the nights staying warm, too warm for sleeping bags except that mosquitoes made you want to stay in them. The nights were so warm the lightening bugs were out -- the one thing we don't have here.
You're right about the shortness of the summer, it can be half way through June before it warms up enough to feel like summer and already in August you can have some nippy days.
Once summer has peaked here, we get those really nice days of sunshine and 70s and 80s like we have now all the way up until late November or December. Then we get hit with something of a winter until early February.
One nice (?) thing about summer in New Hampshire is that I have a couple of squash plants that are growing like something out of a science fiction movie. I keep cutting them back so the butterfly plants and my tomatoes have a chance. The jalapenos are pretty well squashed.
As far as I can tell by reading, (we have not taken a winter vacation to southern NM, Yet) southern New Mexico has a nicer winter than anywhere north of Virginia. Now that is an idea. Maybe we will try a couple of weeks in Socorro next January.
For instance, Albuquerque, NM - at 5000 feet - far north of Ruidoso, NM - is a warmer climate than the southern Ruidoso. It is also a less snowy climate than Ruidoso. At 7000 feet, Ruidoso's winters are overall less harsh (cold and snowy in the conventional sense) than the upper Midwest, however, I probably wouldn't retire there from the upper Midwest if I was seeking a warm year round winter.
Contrary to popular belief, Ruidoso has very similar temps to ABQ in the winter, and is ~10 degrees cooler in the summer: New Mexico
No comparison between Ruidoso and NW Illinois in the winter... it's ~15 degrees warmer during the day and much sunnier.
But I wouldn't choose this for a *winter* home either... the lower elevation areas would be a lot better for that. Also check out SE Arizona... Safford, Sierra Vista, Bisbee...
Hello,
My dad wants to spend Dec-March in a 70+ with low humidity climate. I see, after learning from all of you, that that is just about impossible. Can someone suggest what his best bet is withing the 48 states. You see, he too is trying to escape the northern Illinois weather this winder. (-; Any advice is deeply appreciated. MsK.
Hello,
My dad wants to spend Dec-March in a 70+ with low humidity climate. I see, after learning from all of you, that that is just about impossible. Can someone suggest what his best bet is withing the 48 states. You see, he too is trying to escape the northern Illinois weather this winder. (-; Any advice is deeply appreciated. MsK.
Temperature wise I would say the towns of Deming, Carlsbad and Las Cruces. My preference to live in would be Las Cruces.
i live in Midland,Texas and like ours the winters are pretty mild.I was in South New Mexico in january and it was pleasant weather.....cold nights but the days warmed up nicely in my opinion.
Temperature wise I would say the towns of Deming, Carlsbad and Las Cruces. My preference to live in would be Las Cruces.
Unfortunately, none of those are near being in the 70s from Dec-Mar. Best bet would be southern AZ and CA... maybe near the CO river valley... Lake Havasu, Yuma, etc. Not too pricey either.
Arizona would be where i would have a winter home.....in january when i was there it was in the 70's in Yuma and it was very frigid here in Midland....the windchill got to zero.
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