Where do Minnesotans go when they move? (Minneapolis, Chandler: for sale, condo)

[lazlaz]

All I know is I've been here about 3 1/2 months and ready to get the hell out of here. So bored and this cold weather makes me feel trapped in a cave. Ready to go back to AZ, the best weather.

[Kratka Ridge]

Originally Posted by roneb

I've bumped into a fair number of people in Seattle and Portland who are from Minnesota, New Hampshire and Vermont. They are all, for the most part, young people who are into outdoor recreation. I assume they see the Pacific NW as a mecca for their interests. A milder climate probably plays into it as well.

Outdoor recreation and climate were indeed why I departed Minnesota. I headed to southern California simply because I liked the concentration of preserved hiking/backpacking lands (lots of National Parks, an extensive State Park system, nuermous National Forests, and extensive designated wilderness on the aforementioned federal lands, as well as BLM land - mostly in the desert). The Pacific Northwest did catch my eye, particularly the Olympic peninsula. However, differences in geographic diversity as well as a convenient job transfer opportunity here made the decision easy.

Minnesota has a lot of appealing qualities to me, particularly in culture and society. But the natural world of the mountains and the desert won me over.

[Kratka Ridge]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

To each his own. I just don't care for the desert very much. I would be lost without woods all around me.

I enjoy living with the woods all around me and the desert 10 miles away

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Kratka Ridge

I enjoy living with the woods all around me and the desert 10 miles away

Where is this at?
I wouldn't live in an area prone to wildfires in a tinder box forest!

[Kratka Ridge]

Originally Posted by GraniteStater

Where is this at?
I wouldn't live in an area prone to wildfires in a tinder box forest!

North side of the San Gabriel Mountains. A ski resort a few hundred yards to the south of me, the Mojave Desert less than 10 miles to the north.

Tinder box? Hardly, though it is somewhat drier than the climate I left behind. Though we get about as much snow here (locally about 54"/year) as back in southern Minnesota where I lived.

Fires? Sure, there's a chance. But then, there's a chance everywhere.

Personally, I always find it amusing that this or that natural phenomenon is consider *the* *worst* by people who live elsewhere but don't bat an eye at the natural disasters common to their area. Once you've eliminated the fires and the tornadoes and the earthquakes and the hurricanes and the volcanoes and the blizzards and the tsunamis and the floods, what have you got? Nothing. There is no such place.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by Kratka Ridge

North side of the San Gabriel Mountains. A ski resort a few hundred yards to the south of me, the Mojave Desert less than 10 miles to the north.

Tinder box? Hardly, though it is somewhat drier than the climate I left behind. Though we get about as much snow here (locally about 54"/year) as back in southern Minnesota where I lived.

Fires? Sure, there's a chance. But then, there's a chance everywhere.

Personally, I always find it amusing that this or that natural phenomenon is consider *the* *worst* by people who live elsewhere but don't bat an eye at the natural disasters common to their area. Once you've eliminated the fires and the tornadoes and the earthquakes and the hurricanes and the volcanoes and the blizzards and the tsunamis and the floods, what have you got? Nothing. There is no such place.

I know wildfires are a natural phenomenon. However, the risk for wildfires in the Southwest is far greater than the Upper Midwest or the Northeast.
I have always lived in humid climates with lots of precipitation for the most part, and I just don't do well in a semi-arid climate.

[jasper1372]

Originally Posted by acrylic

It is true that both Phoenix and the Cities are very very suburban. But other than that, I see nothing really that similar between Phoenix and Minneapolis.

And Phoenix doesn't get to 120F too often. From Wikipedia:
On June 26, 1990, the temperature reached an all-time recorded high of 122 °F (50 °C).

The average high in July is 107 degrees. That's 13 degrees below 120. Yeah, I've never experienced that type of weather, and I realize it's hot, but I look at it this way:

I would be able to survive outside longer in 120 degree heat than -35 with the high negative windchills. So, compare an extreme to an extreme, and there you go.

Also, I don't know if you've ever been to Phoenix, or Arizona, but it's not a land of brown. Oh of course there's more brown than there is here. But I was surprised by the sheer amount of trees and plants there are there. They're everywhere. Before I visited, I expected it to be kind of a barren landscape.

You're preaching to the choir acrylic. I've been making this case for years....mostly on deaf ears, or frost on the brain, one of the two anyway.

If I were ever stranded in the middle of nowhere....I'd much rather it be 120 degrees rather than 35 below. Even with no water at 120 my guess is you'd be alive much longer than you'd be at 35 below.

I used to argue this point with my father when I was 15 years old....and that was a long time ago :-) I've always lived in Minnesota and had a love affair with Arizona...or any place warm actually. He always told me it was so unhealthy to go from your a/c house at 78 degrees into that hot house as he called it of 120 degrees. Those wide swings in tempatures weren't good for your body.

When I hit him with the fact that in Minnesota we go from 70 degree houses into 30 below outside temps....he didn't say much after that. He still didn't give though....we just agreed to disagree.

[acrylic]

Originally Posted by jasper1372

You're preaching to the choir acrylic. I've been making this case for years....mostly on deaf ears, or frost on the brain, one of the two anyway.

If I were ever stranded in the middle of nowhere....I'd much rather it be 120 degrees rather than 35 below. Even with no water at 120 my guess is you'd be alive much longer than you'd be at 35 below.

I used to argue this point with my father when I was 15 years old....and that was a long time ago :-) I've always lived in Minnesota and had a love affair with Arizona...or any place warm actually. He always told me it was so unhealthy to go from your a/c house at 78 degrees into that hot house as he called it of 120 degrees. Those wide swings in tempatures weren't good for your body.

When I hit him with the fact that in Minnesota we go from 70 degree houses into 30 below outside temps....he didn't say much after that. He still didn't give though....we just agreed to disagree.

Absolutely.

A lot of people don't want to admit that the extreme snaps that we can get in the winter are no paradise.

To be fair though, you wouldn't last too long in either environment.

Where would you survive the longest though? Of course in the desert. You know on those days where the windchill is extremely low and temperatures are extremely low, they give you somewhere around 10-15 minutes before you get frostbite on exposed flesh.

Though both environments are extremely dangerous, the colder of the two is more dangerous. How did people in the Middle East thrive for years without A/C? *shrugs* I just personally think heat can be better tolerated than cold.

[Chandler85]

Being that was born and raised in Las Vegas, NV and most of my family lives in Phoenix now I can assure you that 107 is still hot - very hot. And please realize that the average high temperature is taken over the last 100+ years most of the time the high is around 110+. As to the the dry heat theory:

Phoenix's humidity is normally around 30%-40%
Temp:113 + 35% humidity = 136.9 degrees
For the sake of argument lets say the humidity is 25% (Las Vegas's average humidity)
Temp:113 + 25% humidity = 122.8 degrees

Minneapolis Summer day - on the hotter end but still pretty average
Temp:92 + 75% humidity = 116 degrees

Also realize the Southwest flirts with 100+ weather from April to Oct/Nov. Instead of the 1 month that MN gets hot.

I just wanted to offer the facts in this situation. I have, in science class, fried an egg on a sidewalk. I had to go the hospital as a child due to 2nd degree burns from fastening my safety belt (Car interiors can easily heat up to 140+ within an hour or two.) I had severe allergy problems due to the dust. And I remember quite well opening the front door and it feeling just like opening the oven after thanksgiving dinner.


EDIT: We get -35 below for a week at most NOT for 3-5 months straight - there is no comparison there

[Boomerbiker]

The best move is to Arizona in November, before winter hits -

then move to Minnesota in May -

then move to Arizona in November -

and so on and so on and so on.........