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New York isn't as cold as I originally thought - thank you, Home Alone 2 and countless other movies depicting New York as cold and snowy around Christmas.
New Zealand and the the coasts of Victoria and New South Wales are nowhere near as hot as I thought they were - in fact, many of these climates are similar to here, and are not very sunny, and very wet.
North Chicago, IL (NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH Chicago itself... this is a separate city that's 50 miles north of Chicago itself) is actually pretty hot in the summer. 85 degrees at times! And sometimes, warmer or as warm as places that are further south, like New Jersey in northern Virginia!
Out in the deserts of SoCal, it actually got pretty cold... 40 degrees that you'd need to sleep with thick blankets.
Last June I went to Chicago. It was my first time east of the Rockies in summer. I was expecting it to be very muggy. It really wasn't that bad at all. Very pleasant.
Is it possible that these experiences with climates being different than what was expected are related to short term meteorological differences? For instance, Seattle has a rep for being cool and damp. Been pretty sunny and dry for months on end now, with only short term results of that stereotypical weather. Meanwhile, Birmingham would not have had the same rep, but we've had so many rainy days the past 2 years, I can't even fathom when the sun does come out for an extended period.
Just a thought. Perhaps the long term trends are true, but in the short term, things can be very different.
The southern California beaches are cooler than I thought. I knew the Pacific kept it a good bit cooler than inland, but I was surprised at how few months the beaches are really used from Malibu through Orange County. Even June in these areas is pretty nippy to be at the beach with temperatures averaging not much over 70 for highs and a pretty stiff wind.
Pretty much any city in East Asia is cloudier than I thought. I also didn't realize how rainy cities there are in the summer compare to the dry winters.
The southern California beaches are cooler than I thought. I knew the Pacific kept it a good bit cooler than inland, but I was surprised at how few months the beaches are really used from Malibu through Orange County. Even June in these areas is pretty nippy to be at the beach with temperatures averaging not much over 70 for highs and a pretty stiff wind.
I lived in OC for 10 years and people would come there thinking the climate would be the same as Miami lol! It can be quite cool there in winter, although where I lived about 6 miles from the coast, it rarely dropped even to the upper 30s at night and never a freeze.
I thought San Francisco was cloudy and cool due to a popular misconception. Turns out it's mild and sunny.
Denver isn't bitterly cold in winter as I had thought, nor does Seattle receive copious amounts of rain.
I think there's a huge misconception about Denver's climate. The first time I came here was in a January and I truly expected to see snow piled up to the gutters on houses. But I arrived and there was no snow anywhere, and I saw people wearing shorts! My guess is that it makes the national news when it snows in Denver in October, or like this year, on Mother's Day, and people come to the conclusion that it snows and piles up from October to May. The coldest average high in Denver is about 43 degrees, so it doesn't stay below freezing enough for snow to pile up much.
And then people don't realize how erratic the climate is here. Like in winter, it can easily go from the 60s to 10 below in a mater of a couple days. Just last week, we had a high of 100 in the city and a record low down to about 49 just a couple days later.
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