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True, I'm not surprised. Vancouver outer suburbs are much cloudier and the temperatures less variable. But who would associate NYC winters with Buffalo or Burlington?!
Though there's a rather big gap between NYC winters and Portland & Seattle. Both the Pacific Northwest cities have average lows above freezing, frost tolerant plants can often survive in the winter. And Portland's average Februrary high of 51°F is a bit March-like; their weather sounds like extended early Spring.
That's because winter starts a bit earlier on the West Coast. November is pretty winter-like in Portland. Generally wintry conditions in Portland start around mid-November and continue into Valentine's Day or so, but it's been known to snow in March and frost definitely persists beyond February. Generally winter temps are pretty reliably mid 30s to low 50s in Portland but a few weeks of the year it will be more like 24-38F and very rarely it might be 60 and sunny, that doesn't happen often though maybe a few days out of the whole winter.
Vancouver BC is definitely snowier on average than Portland and especially Seattle, a winter in Burnaby probably wouldn't feel much different from a DC winter except fewer warm spells and a lot less sun.
I've been to the Tri-State area the past 5 winters for about 10 days at a time, primarily CT & NYC. You might win the argument that I haven't experienced an entire winter but, NYC was almost solidly 7 degrees warmer than CT. Where I was staying in CT two years in a row had 12+ inches of snow! NYC had none. Almost every time I've been to the city in the winter it's been sunny, but chilly outside. Yes NYC has rough winters in Jan/Feb but, I have to agree with the fact that it's not as bad as most seem to make it.
Some people want NYC to be cold, like this group of older guys in Florida all gathered around their newspapers, yelling out "20!" "22!" I thought they were shouting about the stock market, but they were comparing that day's temperature reports from their former hometowns around NYC. The colder it was up here, the happier they were down there.
Yet people have this idea NYC has these brutal Wisconsin type winters
They do? What "people" are you talking about? Certainly, no one who lives in the Northeast thinks that; no one who lives in the upper Midwest (including Wisconsin) would ever think that; People who live in the great plains or the Rockies would assume their winters are worse than anyone else's, and Southerners are deluded about absolutely everything and can be discounted. So who says that, anyway?
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Why? Is there something about winter there that makes it feel colder than it actually is?
I don't think anyone DOES say this at all, but if they do, the answer to "why?" is simple: people are ignorant and stupid, that's why. If they think this, they probably also think New York has a high crime rate, and is not a seaport -- and they would be wrong about both of those, too.
I am a Pennsylvanian with a good memory and I consider New York City to have comparatively mild winters. Certainly milder than anywhere even 30 miles inland.
The ocean has a moderating effect on cold.
In places like Vancouver,Seattle and Portland they have stretches of days where the high temp is 20,it goes down near zero at night and the windchill is below zero to 20 below zero ? Not just a fluke day here or there every 5 or 10 years ? In NYC it happens at least a couple of times every winter and can last for a week at a time. I don't think it gets anywhere near that cold in those places.I don't think any of those places have ever seen 20 or 30 inches of snow in one day with 50 or 60 mph winds either. In seattle I know a 6+ inch snow is considered major and happens only once every 10 or 15 years.Portland doesn't average more than a couple of inches a year does it ?
NY is actually pretty sunny in the winter despite the possibility of big snowstorms.
It never goes near zero in Seattle. I have lived in seattle for 9 winters and the coldest its ever been was 12 degrees
I feel NYC winters have been mild these past few years. I remember the 90s and early 2000s being worse.
I have always wanted to experience winter in the Midwest. The closest I ever gotten is spending winters in central pennsylvania while in college there, and did not notice it being that much harsher than the coastal areas. Also I think I visited Columbus Ohio to see OSU in the winter as well and did not notice it being that much worse either.
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