Kingdom of Knuffel

Gimmie snow wtf

Kitalpha Hart wrote:Gimmie snow wtf

I thoroughly enjoy this comment

ha ha, I feel like there are a lot of places you could move to if you like snow...

Ooh please tell all the best places! I only saw snow for the first time this year, and that was just a small bit on top of some mountains I was flying over

Well, nearly anywhere above either of the 50th latitude lines will have snow, and the higher you go, either way, the more you'll get.... as a general rule.
When you move inland, away from the oceans, you can get the same effect further towards the equator.
(So, say the 50th on a coast will only have an occasional seasonal snowfall, but the 50th in the middle of a continent, so long as it's not a desert, will have a lot more snow, typically solidly all winter.)
You're probably safest going above 55 considering global warming and long-term planning, and if you REALLY want snow, arctic or antarctic circles are of course safe bets. I think those are technically determined at the 60th latitudes.

I don't know, it's just... a lot of the habitable parts of the world have snow?

You could of course go for higher elevations instead of latitudes.


"Best" is so subjective, though! "Best" because it's still a big city? "Best" because it speaks a certain language or has a well-established infrastructure? "Best" because the highest snowfall? "Best" because ease of immigration? "Best" to visit as a tourist?

Ahh let me see.. somewhere with English speakers, it doesn't have to be a city but not completely isolated, and I can imagine living somewhere or just visiting where there is enough snow to be able to properly enjoy it. I've heard people complaining when it only snows a little bit in their area because apparently it just looks like mushy dirt on the side of the road idk

We get lake effect snow, it's fun

Well, you could definitely go to nearly any of the Canadian cities then, although not Vancouver or the ones near it, because that's more of the 'mostly rain, mushy dirt when it snows'. Up by Prince Rupert you'd be fine.
A lot of the non-West-Coast northern US cities would work too.

Falkland Islands speak English but they're pretty isolated and the snow doesn't really stick, even if it does fall. So maybe rule them out.

Dunedin, in South Island NZ, is borderline; if you choose a hilly suburb you should reliably get some snow each year, but it still won't be much. You'll have to live there longer, and then you'll get the occasional real snow.

(most of Australia and NZ are too northern, latitude-wise, to really work. The territories far enough south end up uninhabited because they're too far south, as far as I can see. Maybe there's a little town tucked away somewhere with a goodly amount of snow, but I'm only going to know the larger places.)


Nearly any city in Scotland would do you, though.

and you can find English-speaking enclaves in most of the larger cities in Northern Europe, so that'd open up places like Oslo and Stockholm and Riga and Helsinki and Prague and so on.....

You find English-speaking enclaves in a lot of places, really, so that opens back up some of the lovely areas in Chile, or up in the Kathmandu region, other side of the globe, or other places like that.

I'd love to travel Europe one day especially in the North. The snow and aurora borealis are two things I really want to see, and to experience different cultures. Canada sounds like a nice place too, and I won't have to worry about a language barrier.

What do you mean by the snow doesn't stick? Do you mean like it melts easier?

Yeah; depending on the circumstances, often the ground retains heat from earlier in the day, and is warmer than the air. So snow will fall, and immediately melt. In the case of the Falkland Islands, though, it's mostly that the wind just blows it away, so it never gets a chance to pile up.

I heard about something recently called "dark sky reserves" where they pass laws to keep down light pollution so you can see the stars and everything in the night sky -I feel like that would be the perfect place to see an aurora borealis in!

Those are some good bucketlist items. I need to be more ambitious with mine.