Having lived in both the Midwest (Chicago and Kansas) and the Pacific Northwest (Seattle) I can tell you there is a huge difference between "real" cold and PNW "cold."

Seattle typical winter day is 33 to 45 degrees, and either misty, drizzling, or lightly raining. It gets colder, but when it does it usually cold and clear (we just had a stretch of 25 to 30 degree days but they were bone dry). It can also be warmer. It occasionally gets below 20, and occasionally gets warmer (it was also up to 50 about 10 days ago), but usually it's high 30's/low 40's and wet.

That's east of the Cascades -- up in the mountains it's snowy, and in eastern Washington it can be colder. Also there are areas along the coast where it's much wetter, and a couple of areas that are in "rain shadows" of mountains where it's much drier.

So for someone coming from the upper midwest or New England this area would likely *not* be considered cold. And, at lower elevations, you are trading snow for rain.

Lots of people here get tired of the persistently cool, drippy weather in the winter -- but it's not what I would consider cold; you're not digging cars out of snowdrifts; and you can be outdoors 52 weeks a year.


As far as retirement places go -- I've played around with some of the online sites that rank retirement places (I think there are some in Money magazine's website?). I like the ones that allow you to set your own criteria about what's important -- for example, your definition of "good weather" may not be the same as mine (for example, I'd rather live through Seattle's winters than Arizona's summers). Also you can determine whether you care about things like distance from a major airport; distance from major arts centers; etc.

That being said, if I were looking at retirement places in the Pacific Northwest I'd look at Ashland Oregon (southern Oregon); maybe Eugene if you wanted to be in a college town; Bend, Ore; if you wanted to be around cooler weather; somewhere in Seattle area (area dependent on how close you wanted to be to a big city) - Seattle or its suburbs, Camano Island, Bainbrdige Island, Whidbey Island, etc.