Posted on 01/05/2008 10:08:51 AM PST by MississippiMasterpiece
I plan on retiring within the next two years and would like to move to a cold-weather climate. To me, the perfect day is one where the mercury is hovering around zero. Ideally, I would like it to be as cool as possible year-round, not just winter.
What is the coldest place (on an annual basis) in the U.S. (including Alaska) and in the Lower 48?
Drive straight up I-55. Cross over the state line and you will be in a frozen tundra.
CC
Just curious.
I hear and have seen that ALASKA IS BEAUTIFUL.
They are REPUBLICAN oriented with a liberaltarian twist on morality.
Northern Maine.
West Yellowstone often has the coldest temps in the continental U.S.
I should have send contiguous, not continental.
South Dakota has cold winters and no state income tax. For cooler summers look at the Black Hills area in western South Dakota.
Locals boast that Gunnison, CO is the coldest place in the lower 48. At the height of summer it seldom gets to 80, and in the winter it is brutal; there were two days there last week (we were there) when it didn’t even break 0. Crested Butte, 35 mi. up CO highway 135, is even less warm, seldom getting above 75, but has a lot of rich lefties and counterculture types.
Northwestern Montana — the Flathead Valley near Glacier National Park. Not only is it cold up there, but it’s beautiful — Big Sky country.
Not an uncommon goal. Many leave the Lower 48 for northern latitudes simply because of the unlivable heat in the summer. It is -5 in Fairbanks right now. Rarely is it above 70 in summer although I have seen it 85 a couple days in the past 30 years.
Retire where it is COLD?
You are going the wrong direction, aren’t you?
I would find a white-head in Northern Michigan and swap houses for six months each year.
Okay, Barrow, Alaska, which averages less than 5 inches of precipitation and an annual average temperature of about 10°F, is the coldest and driest place in the USA.
In the lower 48 states, one of the coldest and driest places is Gunnison, Colo., which averages less than a foot of precipitation each year and has an annual average temperature of about 37°F.
Annual averages:
Fairbanks, Alaska (26.7 F), Anchorage (36.2 F), International Falls, Minn. (37.4 F), Duluth, Minn., (39.1 F), and Caribou, Maine (39.2 F).
In Fairbanks, the average daily high temperature in January is -0.3ºF.
Wear something warm. :)
Interesting article...discusses “average temperature”...some parts of Alaska have average temps similar to states in the lower 48, in other words they have really cold days, but some warm seasons too. From the article, looks like Barrow, Alaska on the Arctic Ocean, where the annual average temperature is 10.4 degrees might be the place for you..
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/askjack/2003-07-31-answers-coldest-states_x.htm
I’m living right now in one of the coldest places in the United States, about 280 miles west of Fairbanks. It’s a nice and toasty -23 degrees this morning. However, you made a caveat that you wanted it to be cold throughout the year, not just in the winter. Where I’m living, we do get about 2 1/2 months of warmth, with temps sometimes in the 80s.
The same is going to be true of any place in the Lower 48 with a similar climate, like northern Minnesota, the area around Kent and Caribou, Maine, and the Adirondacks. All of them are consistently cold but they do get a fine surge of warmth during a brief summer.
What you need is something like Nome. Any place without trees is a place where the annual July temperature is less than 50 degrees. Dutch Harbor and Unalaska are also fine, with cold in the winter, cold in the spring, cold in the summer.
However, unless you’re a zillionaire, you aren’t going to be able to afford to retire in the Aleutians or on the Seward Peninsula.
Another option is the Kenai Peninsula. Homer, Soldotna, Seward, are all on the road. They have moderate cold (for Alaska) and the summers tend to be cooler than the interior because of the moderating impact of the ocean.
I’d say for your needs for bracing cold and a cool summer, the Kenai is the spot.
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