New England Winters

I’m at my one-year mark since moving to New England. One goal of this temporary, nomad-style move was to see if I could tolerate the dread New England winters. I’ve made it through the last half of one winter and the first half of another. And so far, they’re not bad at all. A friend asked for a comparison, so here’s what I’ve seen:

Snow: My Utah hometown gets 3–5″ in a decent snowstorm, often more, at least a few times each season. I’ve not seen much worse here, though locals say we’ve had mild times. Freezing rain and summer flooding are much bigger issues so far.

Duration: In New England, spring came and stayed earlier, summer stretched longer, and fall colors lingered beautifully. So winter here doesn’t seem long at all to me. The lower elevation and proximity to the ocean might help!

Sunlight: Winters here are darker earlier. The sun was setting as early as 4:18pm here in December. But it’s probably more about my longitude in relation to my time zone: earlier sunrises balance it out for me, and overall, SLC only gets about 13 minutes more in daylight on the solstice.

Impact from foul weather: In both places, main roads get cleared fairly quickly, so that hasn’t affected me much. But I understand a bad storm will put people out of power here, especially in the countryside, and I’ve never been out of power in winter in Utah. And my pipes have frozen here at 10°F; I’ve only had problems at -10°F in Utah.

Cold: Utah’s inversions can bring bitter negative temps with stagnant, smoggy air—none of that here! But the icy winds here require a balaclava and quality layers. That said, Utah also gets plenty of much warmer days in winter. The temperatures here seem more consistently cold.

So my take? So far, I’m more than surviving! Time will tell whether New England becomes my forever home, but aside from missing my family and friends, I’m loving it here. Maybe one day I could convince them to move here, too. 😉