[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

Actually PURE WATER does NOT conduct electricity, the impurities in the water do.

Can you tell me which Villages pools contain PURE WATER?

I want to know so I can go swimming there during the next electrical storm...

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by jimjamuser

That's why in about 1950 Florida had about 6 million people (all living on the coast) - because A/C was NOT widely available.

Tallahassee (est 1824) is on the coast?

Gainesville (est 1854) is on the coast?

Interesting...

[jimjamuser]

Originally Posted by ChicagoNative

This is going to be our fourth full summer here. Yes, it’s hot and humid; It’s freakin’ Florida! However, after last year, we were almost ready to become snowbirds again.

El Niño made last year the absolute most uncomfortable summer we’ve ever experienced. It seemed like it went into the mid-upper 90s in March and stayed that way until Halloween. Even the nights and early mornings were miserably hot. Summers in Chicago have periods of heat and humidity, but you get a break every few days.

All that said, I’ve never once had to shovel heat or have ice dams break off the building gutter and crash through a wooden porch! I no longer have to wade through many unshoveled sidewalks, yellow snow, or endure multiple days of gray, sunless skies, and cabin fever is a thing of the past. Just like everything else, to each their own.

The whole planet is warming. that's why Florida summers feel warmer in last 10 years.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by JMintzer

You -do- realize what happens to hurricanes when they travel 75 miles inland, don't you?

Thinks that somehow GW will reverse that so they will get stronger. Anyone know if he has bought an EV yet so as to reduce his carbon footprint?

[asianthree]

So I am reading many will take the summer heat of Florida over winters up north.

It’s never winter up north when it’s 100 in Florida.

Maybe response should be I don’t own two residents, so would rather live full time in Florida than full time in snow country. Selling cold weather home for permanent home in TV.

All of of friends in TV, leave to either travel to their second home. Or travel extensively during summer returning in the fall.

[Nancy@Pinellas]

We’re from Michigan. We moved without doing seasonal visits. It’s hot, terribly hot. We do things in the mornings and evenings during the summer. We always take cold water with us wherever we go. We’ve adapted. We’d rather bear the heat than the cold. Good luck with your decision.

[JMintzer]

Originally Posted by Nancy@Pinellas

We’re from Michigan. We moved without doing seasonal visits. It’s hot, terribly hot. We do things in the mornings and evenings during the summer. We always take cold water with us wherever we go. We’ve adapted. We’d rather bear the heat than the cold. Good luck with your decision.

Who do you think you are, being all rational and sensible?

Cute doggo, by the way!

[Joe C.]

As much as I prefer the northern winters over Florida summers, I do have to admit one thing:

A cold beer tastes much better in a hot Florida summer!

[Pairadocs]

Originally Posted by dewilson58

I assume the comparison is cold/snow vs. heat, not tornados vs. hurricanes.


I've lived in the North, during the winter, when I was unable to leave the house for a day or two or three (many times).

I've never been trapped in the house, during the summer, for a day or two or three in Florida.

Right on ! When snow has drifted your DOORS and windows, and it's so heavy you can't go out until is gets down a bit, it does not compare to just going for a plunge in your own, or the nearest pool, or go to the beach (where the breezes never stop even on a hot day). Raised in south Florida, much more tropical, career wise lived in Illinois and in Iowa for a time.... talk about HOT ! Hot and the humidity generated by acres of corn, soy beans, etc. etc. and temperatures of 102, 104... just awful, summer or winter !

[jasamy]

It takes a couple of summers to get use to the heat and humidity here in Florida. Then you tell yourself it’s still easier to stay indoors in AC or in the pool than it is to stay indoors, turn up the heat, look out at the dreary sky, and kiss your money good bye when the heating bills come in month after month. Granted it doesn’t snow every day but what is there to do during the winter if you don’t ski? It’s all about the lifestyle, the sunny weather without worrying about the icy roads or shoveling snow is just an added benefit one learns to live with.

[beckylou152]

I also am from Michigan. You just can’t beat Michigan summers and fall! We didn’t want two houses either so we have a house here, which we love (sunshine most every day all the time), and a park model in a resort up in Michigan. We come back here to Florida in September, which is hot, and leave in May. We visit a few times here each summer, and it is hot. But the bonus is you can get in to restaurants, golf, etc very easily because of the decrease in population. I love both places. I do miss my friends from TV when I’m up north but they welcome me back when I get back. So my answer to you is that you have to decide. Maybe come for a visit in July or August and we how you do!

[Chandra10100]

Originally Posted by Coop63

For any of you who have lived through a few Florida summers, and northern winters (e.g. Michigan), how does it compare? Is it as grueling, do you get use to it, or make every attempt to escape north during the summer month?

This is my biggest concern moving to the TV. I have owned 2 properties in the past and not something I really want to do at this point in my life. I don't mind the snow, just the gray and lack of sun.

You get used to it. You never have to shovel sunshine. It does get HOT somedays but never so hot that I wish I wasn’t here full time. Amazingly enough, the warm helps my aches and pains stay at bay. It’s like living with a heating pad !

[Blueblaze]

Is a Florida summer worse than a New York winter? OMG yes! In August, it often exceeds 90 degrees for days on end! The humidity lingers at 70% for hours and hours until the rain comes and shoots it all the way up to 100%! The wind howls perpetually at 10 mph! Your electric meter spins like a top as your A/C labors against the onslaught! Heck, last year it broke 100 at least twice! And don't even get me started on the hurricanes! Imagine the horror! Even worse, if you could stand to venture out into this hellish landscape, the golf courses are a deserted! You'd have to play alone without the pleasant half-hour party with your friends as you wait for your tee time! Heck, this place is so deserted in August that you won't even find anyone at BJ's to help you figure out the gas pump!

For crying out loud, people! If you have a home elsewhere to escape to, then run for your lives the moment it breaks 80! Seriously, you don't need to stay here more than a couple of pleasant 50 degree months in the winter to deposit the manna we Florida victims need to survive in this hellish place. Save yourselves!

[Betty Wagner]

Lived in Minnesota almost half my life. Great when I was a kid. Drove in heavy snow, ice, spent long hours stuck in winter traffic. Later in retirement, Hated the snow and ice and double digit below zero temps. Ice in the lakes, grey, dreary landscape, winters lasting into April. Wouldn't trade off for constant green, gardening year round. Hot? Stay in during afternoon, read, watch old movies, go to the pool. Love it here.

[ThirdOfFive]

Why does it have to be either-or? Both realities have their attractions.

I admit to being nervous about moving here because of the "horrible heat" mantra I heard from so many others. But after nearly four years here now, full-time, I've come to the happy realization that I LOVE the heat of a Florida summer. More than a Florida winter, as a matter of fact. Summers are greener and thus far more attractive to the eye than winter here. I walk 5-6 miles a day and that doesn't stop when summer comes: I just walk a bit more slowly and try to remember my water bottle, but even if I forget I can count on people in golf carts stopping to offer me a ride or even (as has happened many times) a bottle of water! Besides the halfway point of my walk happens to be a Publix store: Spend a couple of bucks more or less on an ice-cold 20-ounce bottle of unsweetened iced tea and I'm all primed and ready for the stretch run. And golf--who doesn't like knowing that you can pretty much go to the course of your choice at any time after 12:00 noon and get on? Sure, it's hot--but fewer people and overall prettier courses are big advantages.

My experience with winter happens to be Minnesota where I lived year-round for 70-odd years, many of those years in or north of Duluth, and as Mark Twain once observed, the worst winter he ever spent was a summer in Duluth. Yeah, it's cold--I remember walking for a mile the morning the cold temp. record of -60 (not windchill, but actual temperature) was recorded. And you can count on snow on the ground usually for six months out of the year in the more northern reaches of the North Star State. (Not this year, but they deserved a break from Mama Nature). But Minnesotans have a pretty unique way of dealing with winter. Snowshoe baseball, for example. XC skiing. Ice fishing. Hockey. Water skips...for those unknowing, water skips are organized events held on frozen lakes where a long rectangular hole about 100 yards or so long is cut in the ice, and people try to ride a snowmobile on the open water from one end to the other. It can be done; the key being enough speed when you hit the water so that the machine planes out and doesn't sink. A fun part of such entertainment is usually at the end, when people try to set the record of "most people on a snowmobile driving over open water" (or some such). At one event I saw eleven people, admittedly pretty well oiled up on peppermint schnapps, try it. Unfortunately they sank about 10 yards short of the goal. But after the eleven plus their machine were fished out, festivities continued on as usual.

Overall I'll take summers here over winters there, mainly because my arthritis slackens dramatically in the heat of a Florida summer. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy both.