Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
November and February were awful months, IMHO, in the Northeast. Very dreary and depressing.
November here is similar to October in the Northeast, and February is similar to April, I think (it's a month before flowers begin blooming). Very tolerable.
We've relocated here from MA & I notice a big difference.
I've never been diagnosed with anything, but just the same winters in New England were just awful!
By March my husband would be bundling me up & shoving me out the door knowing full well I would break a shovel or some other garden tool(s) on the still frozen ground. But he couldn't stand to have me in the house any longer...
Here in Durham I find I'm gardening into about the first weekend of November. And spring comes much, much earlier (you can actually start planting cold crops in late February if you are careful & a bit lucky).
For those few month when you can't actually be outside gardening (or hiking or playing sports or what ever your hobby of choice is) you don't have to shovel snow and it seems to me there is usally one or two days each month that are very nice. Sunny, high 60s/low 70s. The restaurants all pull out their sidewalk tables on those days and you can actually sit outside & enjoy the sunshine. We've even lucked out with a winter day trip to the beach where it was high 60s. Nice enough to sit outside at a restaurant & eat and take a nice walk (but no toes in the water).
I also noticed that the sun is still up when I leave work. Used to be, up north, when I left work at 5/5:30p in the bottom of winter it was dark, but here even on the shortest days of the year, when I leave there is light. It may be dusk/sunset, but it is still sunlight .
Personally, I find the much shorter winter season, combined with the sporadic sunny days makes NC much more bearable than MA ever was.
I moved from south Florida to NoVA (which about killed me...I had never experienced sleet before!) and then got married and moved to the Triangle two years later. It is much better here than the DC area, but I still feel a little depressed from about November through March. It's really at it's worst in Jan/Feb. And like everyone else said, you can get nice days sprinkled throughout the winter. Obviously, it depends on where you're coming from and what you're used to.
Well, being new here, I have a bit of a different view. I moved from the midwest-HATED winter and found November-April very depressing with all of the cold, snow, etc. BUT... I was surprised when we moved here. We only visited/checked it out in spring and fall-both were beautiful and I assumed summer would be too. I find summers here gray and rainy. In the midwest, we could plan a cookout/picnic almost any day of summer and chances of daytime rain were slim (after the April showers, there was a nice "dry" time). Here, it seems like often this summer, we'd be at the pool or ready to cook out and there would be a downpour. We got rained out of several outdoor activities. I felt there were a lot of rainy/gray days-my family noticed it too as I wasnt going to say anything because this was my dream destination. I'll never go back to the midwest and am happy here, but it is not as sunny in the summer as I had expected.
If you're just looking for less of a gloomy fall-spring, it's great. But, if you are counting on always sunny summers, you might be disappointed.
Now, others say it is very sunny here, or the rainfall doesnt last, but that doesnt help when you have an outdoor outing planned-even only 30 minutes of rain can ruin the plans if there is no shelter (or if you have a darn neighborhood pool that shuts down for 30 minutes for every sprinkle or a boom of what could be thunder-even if the sky is sunny).
It's different.
I think the rains of this past summer were an anomaly. We didn't run our sprinklers even once the entire season and I don't know if we ever took them out of winter mode. Other summers we were watering the dry grass constantly.
What I like about winter here is, even if it is cold, you don't have to stay cooped up inside cause there is little snow. Sunny skies on cold days are a great combination. And we do need a few cloudy gray days or when would we ever clean out our closets!
We've been here 12 years and, yes, summer can be very different each year. It's not unusual to be on a drought status during the summer with water restrictions from the lack of rain.
Yes, this past summer was the rainiest I can remember and quite depressing. I've been here almost 20 years.
But the trouble is, in a normal summer, it's so wicked hot, it's too uncomfortable to go outside anyway.
Summers are nasty here, IMHO. You'll find many people, though, who love the oppressive heat. I went up North for a few days in August, and I felt energized and alive -- I could breathe, and it was a pleasure to spend all day outside.
Quote:
Originally Posted by goodbyesnow
Well, being new here, I have a bit of a different view. I moved from the midwest-HATED winter and found November-April very depressing with all of the cold, snow, etc. BUT... I was surprised when we moved here. We only visited/checked it out in spring and fall-both were beautiful and I assumed summer would be too. I find summers here gray and rainy. In the midwest, we could plan a cookout/picnic almost any day of summer and chances of daytime rain were slim (after the April showers, there was a nice "dry" time). Here, it seems like often this summer, we'd be at the pool or ready to cook out and there would be a downpour. We got rained out of several outdoor activities. I felt there were a lot of rainy/gray days-my family noticed it too as I wasnt going to say anything because this was my dream destination. I'll never go back to the midwest and am happy here, but it is not as sunny in the summer as I had expected.
If you're just looking for less of a gloomy fall-spring, it's great. But, if you are counting on always sunny summers, you might be disappointed.
Now, others say it is very sunny here, or the rainfall doesnt last, but that doesnt help when you have an outdoor outing planned-even only 30 minutes of rain can ruin the plans if there is no shelter (or if you have a darn neighborhood pool that shuts down for 30 minutes for every sprinkle or a boom of what could be thunder-even if the sky is sunny).
It's different.
I have never heard of anyone in NC suffering from SAD!
I just don't see how it would be possible with over 200 days a year of sunshine.
You've never heard of it and you don't see how it would be possible 'cause you're fortunate to never have experienced it personally. Appreciate your good fortune and perhaps leave the commenting on that which you have no experience with to those that do.
Peace.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
and it seems to me there is usally one or two days each month that are very nice. Sunny, high 60s/low 70s. The restaurants all pull out their sidewalk tables on those days and you can actually sit outside & enjoy the sunshine. We've even lucked out with a winter day trip to the beach where it was high 60s. Nice enough to sit outside at a restaurant & eat and take a nice walk (but no toes in the water).
. 
