Some people live in a tropical paradise (for some people at least) with warm weather year-round. Some people live and thrive in places like Fairbanks, Alaska or Northern Siberia and some people live in Southern California where it is some sort of Spring or Summer all year round. The rest of us live in a climate somewhere in between. This blog post will discuss the pros and cons of living in that somewhere in between.

Climate- The weather conditions over a long period of time (months, years, decades, etc.). Not too be confused with weather which is short term (eg: It is sunny today, boy it is a blah and rainy Monday, etc.).

PROS (+)

Variety is a Good Thing: Living in a 4-season climate brings a variety. You can enjoy all of the summer festivals like pool parties and barbecues. The winter events such as snowball fights and sledding. All of the various fall and spring type of festivals such as cherry blossom festivals, pumpkin patch events, etc. What is a nice fall hayride and bonfire if it isn’t a nice fall day and a little frost on the pumpkin? It is hard to have a snowball fight if it 80 degrees in December or January.

Different Seasons Enhance the Landscape: A snowy landscape, that same landscape in the fall with a variety of colors, various shades of green of summer, and the various colors of spring. It is like seeing four different landscapes all in the course of one year. Here are some pictures of South-Central Kentucky in Winter, Fall, and Summer.

Heating and Cooling Season Are Not Too Long: This means that you only have a few months of paying high heating costs and only a few months of paying high cooling costs. That way you do not have to worry about heating your home for 6-9 months or cooling it all year round.

CONS (-)

4- Season Climates Require a Lot More Closet Space: The negative of a four-season climate is that you will be spending a lot more money on clothes. You not only have to store your coats, jackets, hoodies, or anything that makes you look like little Ralphie during the Christmas Story, but you need your summer clothes (shorts, light colored clothing, swimwear etc.) That costs money, costs time to move and sort out all of your clothes, and clogs up space.

More Potential Stormy Activity:

Having a four-season climate often means that your area is a battleground between different air masses (cold, dry, moist, and warm). This helps in breeding storms that can at best create cloudy and rainy weather and at worst cause severe thunderstorms, flash flooding, high winds, tornadoes, and coastal flooding if you are on the coast. It should be noted that nearly all-year round cold and warm climates do have their threats as well (e.g hurricanes for the tropical paradise places and icy winds and blowing snow/blizzards for the cold places).

My Point of View:

I enjoy living in a 4-season climate that Kentucky has. Our day to day weather makes things interesting. If it wasn’t for the hot/humid/rainy summers, the sometimes cold winters, and the springs and falls in between then the landscape of the Lower Midwest and Upper South would not be as fascinating as it currently is. There would not be spectacular fall colors as the leaves fall. There wouldn’t be the beauty of dogwood trees blooming in the springs and flowers blooming or the beauty of the rolling hills of Kentucky or Tennessee covered in a fresh layer of snow. With that said we have to pay the price by having crazy weather, drastic changes in weather over the course of sometimes a few days or even hours. In my opinion it is worth it.