Seriously considering moving from Los Angeles to the Spokane area. Please help me, without hating me! ;)

[Yeledaf]

Originally Posted by sashachamp

Thank you to those that have given kind, decent, courteous responses to my questions. This is a big, life changing move for our family so we're trying to do our due diligence. We're planning a trip out there next month to check it out for ourselves.

Spokane is beautiful in the early summer — but do yourself some true “due diligence.” Visit again anytime between MLK Day and Easter, and keep in mind that it’s like that every year...

Can you live without the sun for six minths at a time? Because that’s the reality of life in the inland Pacific Northwest. Some folks might consider a realistic description of the climate here unkind, indecent, and discourteous. I have no idea why, aside from the mistaken application of the pathetic fallacy...

[SeattleCat]

I moved to Spokane from AZ 25 years ago to finish up graduate school. It wasn't for me at the time, and wouldn't be for me now (go back once or twice a year for various reasons) but I can see why people like it there. For families and kids, I think it would be a very nice place to live. Plenty of outdoor recreation year round. The biggest shock for me was the cold in the winter. After two winters there I was done. I think downtown has really come up and is very nice now. I am not a churchgoer, but pretty much everyone I knew in Spokane was, and they were very active in their churches. I can't imagine you'd have any trouble finding a church/congregation that works for you. And compared to Seattle or LA for that matter I think you'd find that there are lots of conservative/middle of the road folks when it comes to politics. From what you're saying if you can adapt to the cold I think you and your family will be a good fit. I have heard people describe Spokane as a city that is more like a midwest city in many ways than one on the west coast. I haven't spent a lot of time in the midwest, but I think that might be somewhat accurate.

[pnwguy2]

The best scale to use in moving from SoCal to Spokane is the basic differences. Spokane has a real winter. Yep, snow. Spokane also has usual clear sky in the summer and warm to hot temps.

Spokane has a lot of great restaurants of all ethnic varieties. The downtown is vibrant and Riverfront Park is terrific.

Housing has been increasing in value, but still a bargain compared to Seattle and Portland.

A nice mid-sized city, but any SoCal resident moving there would need to adapt to somewhat different culture.

[rkcarguy]

Spokane has, at least so far, one of the better cost of living to income ratio's in the area. But like everything, there is a trade-off. Hot summers(and/or forest fire smoke for 3-4 weeks), and a long cold winter with short days. It's in it's own little corner quite far from Seattle and other large cities. But again, cost of living is good, when more and more of us are just window lickers of the real estate market Spokane still has places to offer. Western WA has been having "California" problems as well, housing is so out of touch with income in my hometown that medical, teacher, professor, and manager positions are going unfilled because the average listed home price is over 9 times the average income.
Eastern WA got hit hard this winter and had a VERY cold freeze and lots of snow due to being on the edge of the "polar vortex", we were hearing that ranches lost around 1,750 dairy cows that froze to death.

[JakotaBlues]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

Walking and riding bikes will be restricted to April through October (with a long break in August when Spokane is choking with smoke from forest fires in Idaho, the Cascades, and/or Canada).

Is it relatively warm in Spokane in April and October then? We are thinking of moving there from nearby in Flathead Valley, MT and those 2 months are quite wintery here. I keep hearing that Spokane is the warm and sunny part of the northwest that is still green and not desert. We get the same amount of sun here as Seattle and I can't take much more of the endless winter gray and cold springs. It always seems warmer when we visit Spokane but I notice that the cloud and temperature comparisons don't show a huge difference, though the growing season there is almost 2 months longer. I could perhaps do 5 months of winter but here with 7-8 is too long.

Is the smoke usually a full month or just 2018? I get paranoid because I never know how bad it will get and it eats into the short summers here so much. A couple years ago it was 6 weeks of smoky skies and just miserable!

[WendyK]

JakotaBlues - I would say that winters in the Spokane area typically begin in November and end in February but that will vary from year to year. And even during other months, there will be unusually warm or cold days. April and October are usually very enjoyable but there have been a few years when we'll get a little snow for Halloween or Easter! I have lived in the area for just over 20 years and would say that the smokey fire season was really bad about 4 years ago. I don't have any breathing issues so I don't pay too much attention to it -- I know last summer we had smoke coming in from other areas fires which was weird because the fires were so far away.

There's not much you can do about the weather, right? Except move to Hawaii! That's where a lot of Spokane people go in the winter to get a break from the cold.

[Jane917]

Originally Posted by JakotaBlues

Is it relatively warm in Spokane in April and October then? We are thinking of moving there from nearby in Flathead Valley, MT and those 2 months are quite wintery here. I keep hearing that Spokane is the warm and sunny part of the northwest that is still green and not desert. We get the same amount of sun here as Seattle and I can't take much more of the endless winter gray and cold springs. It always seems warmer when we visit Spokane but I notice that the cloud and temperature comparisons don't show a huge difference, though the growing season there is almost 2 months longer. I could perhaps do 5 months of winter but here with 7-8 is too long.

Is the smoke usually a full month or just 2018? I get paranoid because I never know how bad it will get and it eats into the short summers here so much. A couple years ago it was 6 weeks of smoky skies and just miserable!

I have never experienced a lengthy time in the Flathead Valley in the winter (I lived in Great Falls so never had to travel to find winter), but I guarantee you summers in the Flathead are way nicer than summers in Spokane (and I like Spokane). If MT is covered in smoke, most likely eastern WA is too.

We meet friends in Spokane every NYE (however we have pushed our celebration up a few days to avoid the crowds....we are never awake at midnight anyway) and we have seen gorgeous weather to very snowy, et, slushy.

Spokane can get very warm in summer, but so can almost anywhere. It is not Coachella Valley hot. However, when you get outside Spokane, especially a few miles east, you become very aware that it is high desert.

[mistyriver]

Originally Posted by Jane917

I have never experienced a lengthy time in the Flathead Valley in the winter (I lived in Great Falls so never had to travel to find winter), but I guarantee you summers in the Flathead are way nicer than summers in Spokane (and I like Spokane). If MT is covered in smoke, most likely eastern WA is too.

We meet friends in Spokane every NYE (however we have pushed our celebration up a few days to avoid the crowds....we are never awake at midnight anyway) and we have seen gorgeous weather to very snowy, et, slushy.

Spokane can get very warm in summer, but so can almost anywhere. It is not Coachella Valley hot. However, when you get outside Spokane, especially a few miles east, you become very aware that it is high desert.

Really ONLY to the east of Spokane by 20 miles or so. The gorgeous Palouse is to the south and the forests of Idaho and northeast Washington are to the east and north.

[bjewell]

Originally Posted by Yeledaf

You’ll be rich in Spokane from the sale of your million-dollar California home (and the people you meet here will love hearing about it!) but depressed by the gloomy weather and endless winter. Walking and riding bikes will be restricted to April through October (with a long break in August when Spokane is choking with smoke from forest fires in Idaho, the Cascades, and/or Canada).

Of course, you’ll easily be able to afford to spend the six months of Spokane winter in a warmer place like...Southern California?

Which raises a question...

Rude much? My "California home" in a small town in the Sierra foothills is worth -- tops -- $295,000. It's only in the big cities in certain neighborhoods that you get into the millions. The folks asking -- most politely -- seem to be wonderful people. You, on the other hand, sound like a petulant jerk.