Hellobee Boards

I'm pretty sure Maine and Minnesota aren't cold all year round haha. Maybe some more knowledgeable bees can weigh in but I think you got some bad info!!

I live in Canada. For 5 years I lived in Ottawa which had some pretty awful winters. I hated it. The summers were awesome though, 25+ C from about mid-May to early September. Pretty nice. I never grew accustomed to the cold. I wish I could hibernate all winter!!

We always daydream about moving somewhere warm. San Diego is at the top of our list!

Not sure about Minnesota, but Maine is definitely not cold year round! It gets plenty warm during the summer!!

Where I grew up, we didn't have a garage, so it definitely sucked having to de-ice your car or shovel it out. You had to keep track of the weather so you knew if you needed to get up early in the morning or not for these tasks! Where I live now though we have a garage, so I don't have to worry about my car. Sometimes we'll have to get up early to snow blow the driveway though! Definitely want to own a snow blower! It sucks if it's snowing while you're at work though. Then you have to clear off your car and sometimes shovel out the tires - invest in a car shovel!

You get used to driving in snow boots - that's not really much of an issue! I usually keep nice shoes at my desk at work and will just change into them once I get to my desk!

As far as your hallways, most homes have some sort of welcome mat and a place for your boots as soon as you walk in. You'll want to wipe off your feet both outside and in and then take off your shoes so you're not tracking snow and dirt everywhere! But every house is like that.

Get a warm coat, a scarf, hat and gloves, and you'll be good to go! And no - you never get used to the cold, haha. Some days when it's near 0 degrees and there's a wind chill of -20, you feel like your whole face is going to fall off. But you just get where you're going as quickly as possible and spend as little time outside as you can!

Also - playing in the snow is fun! Snowmen, sledding, skiing, tubing, etc! And Christmas isn't Christmas without snow on the ground!

ETA: Also, depending on where you live and the types of roads you have to drive on, it might be worth it to invest in snow tires. Growing up, we lived in the middle of nowhere, so all our cars had a second pair of rims and snow tires, specifically for the winter. It definitely makes a difference! Now I live in a city and just drive on highways, so I have all-seasons tires. But when it's snowing, or particularly icy, I can definitely tell the difference and miss my snow tires.

I am in the northern prairies in. Canada. Last year was one of the coldest winters I remember. Very windy with windchills over -50C consistently. And I am not sure when you consider the cold to start but for me thats usually when the temperatures start dipping into the minus's. So our cold is usually October - April. However I have seen snow in September and May before.

I HATE the cold. I complain every year about it. Its even harder with LOs because all of the heavy clothing and moving them in and out of vehicles. It sucks. But, our summer's are pretty good too. Reaches +30C.

I live in Maine and can promise you that it gets warm in the summer; in fact we installed A/C this summer in our house! Granted, we won’t use it as often as many other places, but summers are generally 70-85 degrees during the day. The great thing about Maine is it is almost always sunny. It might be cold, but there will be a bright blue sky and plenty of sun. I grew up in Seattle and the weather in Maine is MUCH better; even with the harder winters.

Winter is long here – it’s already getting down into the 30’s at night, although it’s still up in the 60’s during the day. We definitely have 4 seasons here and fall is lovely. Sometimes it will snow before Halloween, but that is rare. If you live in the mountains, way north or inland, winter is much longer. We’re on the water and our winter is noticeably calmer than even just ½ an hour inland.

Although everyone complains about winter every year….really, you just get used to it. I have 4WD (and my husband has AWD), although plenty of people don’t. You invest in a nice set of snow tires, which will last for several years and I leave those on my car from about November through April, because we *always* get one big storm after everyone thinks winter is over.

I have an awesome set of snow boots and wear those back and forth to work every day and just leave heels in my office (I do that year round though, and in summer wear sneakers back and forth). Remote car starters are popular here, and the cities take pretty good care of the roads (well, for the most part). Even small towns will have salt and sand trucks and huge snow plow trucks. The highways are always fine, unless you are literally driving in the middle of a huge storm.

You can get a snowblower to plow out your own yard, or hire someone to plow. Every third person here is a handyman, so we just have someone come and plow out our drive for us when there is a big storm – he’s got it all cleared out even before we wake up!

Really, you just get used to it, probably because you have to.

I'm in Ontario, and we seem to get a mix of winters that aren't so bad and ones that are horrendous and go on forever. The worst for me is shoveling and blowing the driveway. As if it isn't bad enough having to go out and scrape your car, we usually have to clear the driveway too before we can get out. That, and shitty drivers who don't seem to know how to adjust for the winter roads.

I live in the GTA (north of Toronto) now but have lived in Calgary, Ottawa and Orillia (for school) so I have lived through some bad winters. In Ottawa we had to plug our cars in overnight or they wouldn't start.... everyone has a block heater put in their car for this purpose.

In Orillia, I once spent 6 hours digging my car out of snow to attend a concert. The snow/cold is so common that snow days are VERY rare so we were always expected to be at school. The time I had the concert was the ONE snow day we had up there.

Calgary got very cold but I found it bearable because the cold was much dryer than in Ontario, where the cold gets deep into your bones and is hard to shake, even if you dress really warm. In Calgary, it could be -40 but sunny and blue skies so as long as you dressed appropriately, it wasn't bad. I walked to work every day when I lived in Alberta.

Honestly, I don't think many people ever get used to the cold. Our hot, humid summers can tend to tie us over... we have beautiful falls but winter can be miserable and even though I've lived through 30 of em, I complain every year!

Shovelling the driveway can be a nightmare, waiting for your car to warm up sucks, scraping ice off is awful... you have to get up SO MUCH EARLIER just to be at work on time. Traffic is horrendous too - even though we've all been driving in it forever, it's like everyone forgets over summer. Winter boots aren't that bulky though so I don't find they make driving all that bad? And everyone has a mat at their front door for boots. I always put mine upside down on the vent at the front door to dry them out.

All that said, winter really can be beautiful. I can't imagine not having snow and I ADORE white Christmases. Toboganning, snow ball fights, and making snowmen are among my favourite childhood memories. I love bundling up and drinking hot chocolate and walking through snow... it really is magical!

I live in Montana (next to North Dakota) but I grew up in Virginia so it so it seems cold to me here! The big things I notice are:

- winter lasts a lot longer here. It's only really cold Dec - Marxh but I've seen snow as early as Augusr and as late as May!
- it does get pretty cold. But it fluctuates. Some weeks it's in the 30s and others it's much colder
- it's not usually super cold and super snowy at the same time. There's a phrase "too cold to snow." You usually get the super cold temperatures when there is no cloud coverage. When it is cloudy enough to snow that acts as some insulation.
- it gets really easy to get cabin fever. On the shortest day of the year we have less than eight hours of daylight. When it turns to spring it's so nice to get out and about.
- that being said, winter sports are great. I love XC skiing although I haven't been in two years because of the babies! I can't wait to get out this winter.
- there is a saying "no such thing as bad weather only bad clothing." I want to get some good fear for the kiddos and myself so we get out more this winter but it is super expensive.
- one year I lived in Spokane and we got about 100 inches of snow that winter. It was pretty crazy.
- when it's below zero Fahrenheit, your nose hairs freeze when you go outside.
- humidity makes the cold worse. So even though we have cold temps, it's usually pretty dry air and won't feel as cold as you think it might.
- travel can be tough in the winter. If you have to go over a mountain pass the conditions can be bad. It contributes to the cabin fever for sure.
- it actually gets pretty hot here in the summer. But at night without the humidity it cools off fast.

@MrsKoala: wow I had no idea... Thx. I have been before but only in the summer, spring and once in November and it was chilly, but not freezing!

I live in Michigan and our winters can be brutal! Last year was by far the worst in my 20+ years here.

It's a long and dreary 4-6 months. A lot of people around here have to deal with seasonal depression from the lack of sunlight, etc.

We try to stay cozy inside, but seriously it can make you stir crazy for sure! Our spring-summer-fall is amazing though

I grew up in Wisconsin and now live in Texas. So here's my thoughts on it. Heat and Cold are really the two extremes you deal with. You decide which one you can tolerate more. They both "suck" equally. In Wisconsin, you never really get used to the cold, you learn to live with it. Same is said for the heat in Texas.

There aren't many places in the US that have a moderate climate year-round.

I've obviously lived in both extremes and can't say that I prefer one weather over another. We live in the South because there are things about the South that appeal to me. My DH on the other had has never lived in the North and would love to move to the Midwest, I don't think he'd last through one winter

I loved winter! You don't have to dress heavily to be warm, you can use thin layers (<3 wool) and a wind-breaking layer.

Hands and feet seem to be the hardest for people to keep warm, but I figured that out too- mittens and shoes bigger than your usual size, so you can fit thicker wool socks, or 2 pairs. Regular shoes will either not insulate at all, or if you try to fit more socks/thicker socks to make up for it, you'll cut off circulation and still feel really cold anyway. You don't have to have "snow" boots at all.

I'm a Floridian that temporarily transplanted to southern Oregon and then Colorado to try new things. I biked to work for the first time ever, and experienced my first winter as an adult. I think the coldest I've been out in the weather was -14F though, so nothing compared to the Canadians and others.

I can say that I prefer bicycling in the snow to having to scrape off a car, wait for it to heat up, and drive in snow.

Oh, and pants suck. I did so much better with a pair of wool tights under a skirt. Sometimes if it got really cold I'd wear two pair, one over the other. Fleece-lined leggings are good too.

I'm actually kind of nervous to see if any of my newly-learned winter tricks will work for the brief time that it gets cold in Florida. The humidity makes for bone-numbing cold, if I remember right.

@Cherrybee: for all the complaining i do about snow and cold, i think i would be seriously depressed to live somewhere with rain constantly. dreary, grey, wet weather would really take a lot out of me. and i think i would miss the 4 seasons if i lived somewhere tropical year round. so maybe i should just stop whining every year since i know it's coming! haha.

@Cherrybee: hahaha, you'd never hack it here. Just stay where you are.

As far as digging your car out from work - I usually just leave work early when it's snowing so I don't have to deal with it! Though I do usually need to brush the snow off first. The worst is when it rains and then freezes (or you just get freezing rain) and then you have to scrape all the ice off your car. THAT sucks. And driving in freezing rain is an exercise in patience.

I think probably the worst part about living here is that, despite the fact that it snows every year, everyone drives like they've never been in snow before and they don't know how to handle it!!! It's soooooo frustrating getting stuck behind some idiot who doesn't know you need to get a little speed to make it up the next hill or else you'll just spin out and be stuck there (and so will every single person behind you)!

@Adira: YES. Scraping off ice sucks the big one. So does frozen slush. Yuck.

@Cherrybee: oh yes. Digging out cars is the worst!! I commute via train and you have to bring a shovel to dig your car out of the lot on a snowy day! It stinks!!

Here is Boston last winter after a huge snowfall.

@Cherrybee: No, freezing rain is rain that basically freezes when it hits the ground. So you get all wet AND the roads and your car basically turn into complete ice. It SUCKS. And scraping off your car all depends on what you're dealing with. If it's just snow, then you probably just have to brush it off. If it's ice, you need to scrape it off. And LOTS of people only clear off their windshields, but you're really supposed to clear off your whole car - otherwise the snow on the top just falls and obscures your back window, and sometimes it flies off and hits another car, which can cause accidents!

@hellobeeboston: ah, Boston in the winter

@Cherrybee: The best is when it changes from rain, to freezing rain (meaning rain that freezes on contact with the ground/your car), to snow, back to freezing rain. So you have a layer of ice on your car, followed by a thick layer of snow, and then another layer of ice on top of that. Ugggh, stop talking about the winter, it's warm here today!

Another thing - with all the snow and hilly terrain here (Boston suburbs) you feel like you *need* a car with 4WD/AWD, and they have terrible gas mileage.

@Shutterbug: Oh my gosh, YES! The ice/snow/ice combo is definitely the WORST! And it makes the snow layer so heavy and have to get off. Fluffy snow is the easiest to deal with. On days like those, I just sit in my car for 30 minutes while it heats up and defrosts the windows enough for me to actually clear it!

I definitely don't live somewhere with long winter but wanted to say that my DH and I LOVED the FX mini series on Fargo that came out this year. If you liked the movie you should really watch it!