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.
We've been down this road before haven't we? I think we all know that the PNW in particular is certainly not a land of eternal gloom or rain, even if it dominates a good chunk of the year. Summers are warm, sunny and dry - what's not to like? Why does it need to be excessively and stupidly hot for it to qualify as summer?
I wonder if I should have picked Oklahoma City instead... it could have been a closer poll... At what point in the Amerixan midwest north of Dallas do winters start feeling more wintry than Hobart?
This is tougher than I thought. Hobart is very close to my own climatically, just a little, colder, wetter and cloudier than here, so I would have a good idea what it's like. Most days would have a mixture of pleasantly warm sunshine, with a chance of an abrupt change to cooler conditions at any time. Sudden change is a strong feature of Oceanic climates, and the feeling of cold here, usually comes not from outright cold, but from the strong contrast over a short time. Mt Wellington would get frequent snow, which would add to the wintry feeling.
Dallas seems like it would be generally pretty warm, but those cold snaps would be far more wintry. I think cold weather would be of a worry in Dallas than Hobart. It would be easy to forget the warm days, when it's -10C, whereas Hobart would get very few days, where it's not pleasantly warm at some point during the day.
I would choose Dallas as feeling more wintry, because it gets way more subfreezing weather and snowfall.
Great thread, and a tough call. I think I will go with Dallas being more wintry due to the higher std deviation in winter. The means are almost identical. Hobart looks pretty mild, and doesn't even go below freezing. I'm sure Dallas has quite a few more nights of freezing, as well as ice days. Dallas averages 26 nights with min temps lower than or equal to 32F. Dallas averages 2 ice days a year.
I'm not sure how much you can weigh ice days though, or even frost nights. Houston averages 12.5 nights below or at 32F, and averages 4 ice days every 10 years. Houston with Jan average of 63/43F would be quite a bit less wintry on average than Hobart imo, yet it still gets more ice days and frost nights. Unless of course most of you discount max day temps and only focus on winter night min temps. I seem to detect a bias from Oceanic climate folks towards favoring any climate that is warmer at night vs day. Probably based on their own experiences growing up in that climate. What I would like to see is someone that has lived in both cities for an extended period of time weigh in on which matters more, daytime or night time temps. I remember returning from London in the middle of winter, and the high sun in Philly with minimal wind and temps in the 30'sF felt warmer than London to me. Mornings and nights were a different story of course.
I voted Hobart. In my experience, coastal places feel quite colder at the same temps, especially in winter.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wavehunter007
You have included all the reasons I hate middle and high latitude oceanic climates....classic gloom and doom, no warmth, little sun, and never any storms.
I laughed at the "no warmth" and "never any storms" ones. Overstatement much?
That's unusual. In winter I definitely think of coastal places as being warmer
Warmer yes, but not so much when factoring in the "real feel" in my opinion. For example I remember finding a 2°C day severely cold in La Rochelle in winter. The temperature itself was quite benign, but I found the wind really biting.
Warmer yes, but not so much when factoring in the "real feel" in my opinion. For example I remember finding a 2°C day severely cold in La Rochelle in winter. The temperature itself was quite benign, but I found the wind really biting.
Joe something to keep in mind is that we often get oceanic conditions in winter with NE and E winds coming off the Atlantic. Common feature is cloudy, damp and temp in the 40's in winter with rain. I know quite a few people in my region that hate that weather and much prefer the dry, sunny colder NW winds. A sunny day in the mid to upper 30's usually feels warmer to me than the 40's cloudy and damp Atlantic weather. Mornings though are colder in the dry air. But it most definitely does not feel "warm" in the least most of the time when we get Atlantic air in winter.
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.