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Denver, of course.
It deserves B- grade (summer highs are too hot, summers are too sunny), because of better winters (sunnier, drier and colder than Medford).
Medford deserves D+ grade (all drawbacks of Denver's climate, plus wrong precipitation pattern).
1. No hail
2. Not as windy, no potential for tornadoes
3. More precipitation and more precipitation days
The biggest difference is things grow in Medford due to the lack of random freezing from Sept-May. They have much nicer trees and an entire agriculture scene like vineyards that Denver can't have. Medford's an island of dry in a sea of green hillsides above vs a island of green (from water over the mountain range) in a sea of brown. The street scene of front range cities is littered with half dead trees from hail, random freezes, droughts, etc...
Denver does not have that nice of a climate, just nice topography next door; there's a reason there were hardly any native americans in CO and the wagons headed west didn't stop there first.
I'd pick Denver from a weather nerd perspective, plenty of extreme events with huge temperature drops from day to day, severe thunderstorms, and big spring snowstorms. But in terms of where I'd actually want to live, I'd pick Medford. Way easier to garden there, and it's not quite as dry so the landscape is much greener and treeful-er. And it does still snow there once in a while!
I'd pick Denver from a weather nerd perspective, plenty of extreme events with huge temperature drops from day to day, severe thunderstorms, and big spring snowstorms. But in terms of where I'd actually want to live, I'd pick Medford. Way easier to garden there, and it's not quite as dry so the landscape is much greener and treeful-er. And it does still snow there once in a while!
Those freak events are absolutely murderous on plants and your cars smooth exterior. It's not just the dry or the cold that kills plants in CO, it's the hot winter periods then cold spring snaps. Better seen from the Weather Channel than observing the effects the day after . For instance, the front range just didn't have fall the last 2 years, leaves just froze right off.
I've visited both places more than a couple of times. Medford would be my first choice by a long shot. I like the reasonable amount of humidity in the air, compared to Denver. Denver has that bone-dry, desert-like lack of humidity most of the time, the kind that makes skin dry out. The great plains wind makes that dryness feel even worse.
The summer heat in Medford is not so bad, it doesn't last all day. Even on those hot days when temps might be around 100F/38C in the mid-afternoon, it usually cools down enough after sunset that you can open the windows and feel a nice breeze. The morning temps can often get down to 60F or even cooler! This means you don't need to run home AC all day in the summer, just on those real hot afternoons.
One downside of Medford not shown in any temperature chart are the occasional summer air quality problems. Some years, especially recently, wildfires in the western US have produced smoke and ash clouds that have put huge areas into air quality alerts. Medford is in a river valley that can trap a lot of wildfire smoke during the fire season.
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. For instance, the front range just didn't have fall the last 2 years, leaves just froze right off.
