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$140 a acre or cheaper in the Deep Southern/Southwestern part of WV I can see, but the economic/job climate is in bad shape. If one had a decent retirement or disability fund you could live like a king on the cheap!
Can you give some areas that you mentioned, because I fall into that category you mentioned.
We have been looking in the Babour area. What are some pros and cons? It appears that jobs in the disabilities community are all over. We will obviously find work prior to moving but I am trying to pick a region to start.
Property is way more important for us than a fancy house, we kind of like fixer uppers, so we are focusing on what the area looks like, crime, small town feel without having to drive 30mins for milk, up to a 30min commute to work.
Someone mentioned staying away from the smaller cities like Elkins. My husband works in rehabilitative care for at risk youth and there are many options here. Elkins is home to the WV Children's Home, The Mountain School, Appalachian Community Health, and several others. There are also plenty of places outside of Elkins that could provide you with some land and isolation yet being fairly close to the services of Elkins. We are a small town in the mountains, with tons of outdoor activities in the area, good schools, and a thriving arts and tourism scene.
Check out the places I listed, if you have any questions... feel free to ask!
WV is also #1 on my list, Morgantown in particular. I wonder why WV is not much more popular both with Americans and immigrants, the latter of which all but shun it completely.
It has a nice climate, few dangerous animal species, hilly green scenery, friendly people, almost like a safe haven regarding natural disasters...
Maybe it's not cosmopolitan and sexy enough for most people...
Bad economy, poor infrastructure, no major cities to attract millennials, and a poor national reputation.
And on immigrants, most are drawn to large cities that have much better job opportunities, as well as communities of people from their home region that can help them adjust to America.
Bad economy, poor infrastructure, no major cities to attract millennials, and a poor national reputation.
And on immigrants, most are drawn to large cities that have much better job opportunities, as well as communities of people from their home region that can help them adjust to America.
I think millennials in general just like living in larger cities where there is more to do with people their own age, like a Charlotte. The fact is West Virginia has an older population. College towns have lots of young kids of course but most are ready to get away from that scene once they graduate. And while you might be able to drive to a larger city from most of West Virginia in an hour or two it's still not like living there...that's a good thing IMHO but not so much for the younger generation, who tend to want to live right in the big cities within three blocks of a Starbucks.
Why is it often so warm in WV? Today for instance, notice the red spot covering WV, clearly warmer than in the surrounding regions and even further south
Why is it often so warm in WV? Today for instance, notice the red spot covering WV, clearly warmer than in the surrounding regions and even further south
I am sure you may get several opinions here but West Virginia is a crossroads state. It was once described as the most northern of the southern states, most southern of the northern states, most western of the eastern states and most eastern of the western states. Like its cultural diversity by region of the state the climate is also diverse as well.
Most national reporting services indicate Charleston and sometimes Huntington on their weather maps. While Huntington has a weather climate similar to most of the Ohio River Valley, Charleston sits in an elongated bowl and is surrounded by a ring of mountains. The city is ~700 feet in elevation but the surrounding mountains are 1400, 1500 or more.
During the day time, Charleston can get very warm, sometimes very warm - 100+. It is on roughly the same latitude as Sacramento, California and Wichita, Kansas and is further south than is St Louis or Washington D.C., but where these cites are roughly at sea level or only a hundred feet above sea level Charleston sit atop the Appalachian Plateau. Because the city is ringed by so many mountains that are all covered in thick, dense, lush vegetation, once evening comes on and the sun sets, all of that cool that has been pooling under the forest canopy, flows down out of the mountains and into the valley below. Charleston cools down to very cool temperatures at night, even in the summer.
The same effect occurs in the winter months but to a lesser extent because much of the trees are deciduous. This can produce very chilly nights and frigid sunrises before warming up during the day.
So from summer to winter can be much hotter than the other cities in the Mid-Atlantic region and much colder in the winter. Another factor that must be taken into account is that West Virginia in general is a fresh water originator. All of the weather systems that flow across the central plains must drop their water over West Virginia before they can climb of the Appalachian Mountains and head further east.
This means there is a lot of water in the valleys all across West Virginia and water tends to be a heat sink, gathering heat during the day and releasing it slowly at night. This is why Charleston is one of the foggiest cities in the nation.
So the weather systems moving west to east over West Virginia, drop a great deal of rain water in rain and thunderstorms during the summer, turn that into snow in the higher elevations just east of Charleston. When Charleston is getting 8 inches of snow, the mountains eastward are get 2 or 3 times that.
The states east of the Appalachian mountains are always milder than the Midwest in the winter, but since those warm regions of WV are west of those mountains, the heat is probably not from the south Atlantic, I suppose. Unless it's Chinook-type air streams like the ones that cross the Alps from Italy into Germany. Else one might expect cold air from Canada to move to WV.
But as you said, the vegetation might also play a big role. It is all rather complex...
The states east of the Appalachian mountains are always milder than the Midwest in the winter, but since those warm regions of WV are west of those mountains, the heat is probably not from the south Atlantic, I suppose. Unless it's Chinook-type air streams like the ones that cross the Alps from Italy into Germany. Else one might expect cold air from Canada to move to WV.
But as you said, the vegetation might also play a big role. It is all rather complex...
It has been some time but an archaeobiologist once explained to me that West Virginia had the most diverse flora in the US because the glaciation process stopped at what is the Ohio River and so the existing plants were not scraped off of the surface. Likewise, when the warm periods hit, the heat from the south was diluted to an extent from the higher elevation, mountains and prevailing winds blowing west to east over the Appalachian Mountains, meaning that the sub-tropical foliage went no further than West Virginia. By repeating the process over and over, the flora of West Virginia has plant life that grow no where else in the US.
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