- Oregon Climate Service precipitation maps of the area. Looks like Boston gets about as much rain as Seattle, and almost double SF area.
- Climate projects has data looking forward, page 890 has climate and rainfall projections. Looks like Boston will get a bit warmer and more rain. CA and Seattle dry out a bit.
- Air quality summary. Looks like Boston is worse than Seattle and SF, though the SF counties include gobs of costal area which biases the measurement. Monthly breakdown
- And browse some census data data such as median age
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Comparison of Boston, San Francisco and Seattle on weather
I'm toying with moving to Boston from SF area and nature is a big factor. Here's some data I'm looking at:
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i'm assume this has convinced you not to move. now let us never speak of this again.
ReplyDeleteThere's no comparison between Boston and San Francisco, Boston wins hands down
DeleteHey Josh-
ReplyDeleteAs someone who just made the switch from NYC to Boston, I think the raw data sometimes lies. Example: Boston gets significantly more snow than NYC even though temperature and precipitation is roughly comparable. But on the positive, the snow here in Boston is actually nice as opposed to the quickly greying stuff we had back in NYC.
ace
Weather is important but people matter more. Go where people care about the same things you do. Where you thing you can work on good projects with great people.
ReplyDeleteI live in Boston now and want to leave. Maybe I'm not in the right circles, but SF is the place to be. The tech scene here is different here -- too conservative.
People are in the mode of school/job over startup, especially these days. And sometimes by startup they mean enterprise Cobol rewrite database thingamajig business. And people are into college mode; they want to be academics. That's discouraging for an outsider like me.
But while those options are cool for some, that's not what I'm looking. But there's no doubt it's a second rate scene regardless of my experiences.
Have you visited Boston and gotten the opinion of people living there?
ReplyDeleteHaving done the opposite - moved from Boston and had the opportunity to live in San Francisco - I kept feeling like SF was "Boston-lite." San Fran's mass transit system is fractured into 3 (Muni Bart Caltrain) and it winds around leaving random areas uncovered. Boston's mass transit (the T) provides great coverage of the city, partly because the city is so small. Buying something in San Fran seems to cost about twice what it does in Boston - and I mean right down to simple things like a cone at Baskin Robbins.
It does NOT rain as much in Boston as it does in Seattle - it SNOWS. Boston gets rain, but it breaks down like this: Usually rain comes from Gulf weather systems, meaning the rain brings warmth. In the winter it gets colder than San Fran or Seattle ever get - it can get into -10s and on rare occasion even -20s in late-Jan/early-Feb.
For me the strength of Boston is it's people - I just love the general attitude of Bostonians. They're upfront, and they tend to have a sense of humor. You know what you're getting right away so it makes it easy to sort out who's your friend, and who to toss back to the sea of strangers.
I spent maybe 1.5 months in Boston. I really like the town and the people.
ReplyDeleteI hate to come back to this after it's been sitting for so long, but I'm about to move back to Boston at great personal expense because it's pros GREATLY outweigh the cons when compared to San Francisco. The basic breakdown:
ReplyDeleteIn Boston, people live like they drive. They're going somewhere, and there's absolutely no way you're going to get in their way. They'll do everything they can to overcome whatever obstacles are put in their path. The food and people are more honest, where a steak is a steak and a burger is a burger, and if you want it different you should've thought about that while you were looking at the menu.
In San Francisco (the entire Bay Area), people wash to and fro, just sort of going with the flow. It's like they're lost out in the ocean and don't realize they have paddles and can see land. They're just going through the experience. If something doesn't work, it's not a big deal, it isn't a "failure" because they learned from it. Homeless people littering the streets with defacation and running out into the streets while swearing at migrating birds isn't even something worth taking notice of.
In general, I'd say the San Francisco Bay Area is the worst place I've ever lived. It certainly seems like the place trust-fund babies go to "grow up" on their own time, and that attracts the worst detritus in our country. It's a lazy place, where startups are founded without any forethought as to whether or not they have the slightest chance of succeeding (I've seen several rise and flop in my two years here, and most didn't even have a revenue plan).
The weather only keeps homeless people out of Boston. It shouldn't keep smart, effective people out. If you're smart and get things done, you belong in an environment that supports that.