Its not just the heat, its the humidity and the heat.

April 16, 2012 8:50 PM

LocationFilter: Is there a region in the US where it is consistently humid (~50%-70% humidity) and consistently cool (~60-80F) year-round that is a decent place to live and work?

We're fighting a persistent skin condition for my daughter, and the weather has a major impact on the flare ups. While I think that we'll find a better way to manage this over the next few years, if the opportunity for work presented itself in an area which would naturally improve her skin condition, we might consider making the change.

posted by Nanukthedog to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

Best answer: San Francisco. It's rarely hot (over 80) here, and when it climbs that high or higher, it ends in three days and then you get a nice cool fog blanket. It's always humid.

This is an area of microclimates, so you won't have the same weather across the bay, where it will definitely be warmer, or on parts of the Peninsula. I work 30 miles south of SF and in the summer there can easily be a 30-degree difference.
posted by rtha at 8:56 PM on April 16, 2012 [5 favorites]

Best answer: Seattle is humid through most of the year (though it doesn't usually feel that humid, really) and leans toward the cool side. I think the average is more like 50-70, so maybe a little further south in the Pacific NW would suit you if that sounds too cold? And it's great to live here!
posted by joan_holloway at 8:58 PM on April 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was going to say the same thing as rtha, San Francisco - weather info here.

Portland (Oregon) might be somewhere to look into, too. Generally, places on the west coast from San Francisco up north to Seattle would be where I'd look.
posted by empyrean at 9:05 PM on April 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Check out Honolulu. Is it a decent place to live and work? That depends a lot on your preferences. But it seems to meet your weather criteria pretty spot on. The weather is almost laughably consistent within your specified temperature band. Climate charts available here and here.
posted by texano at 9:15 PM on April 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Humboldt County CA. Beautiful weather, rarely above 70 or below 40. The downside, we are 6 hours of driving from anything like a real city. We do have an airport though.
posted by cairnoflore at 9:17 PM on April 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Of the neighborhoods of San Francisco, I hear the Sunset District is coolest and foggiest.
posted by Hither at 10:02 PM on April 16, 2012 [1 favorite]

Camarillo's a nice little town (I lived there for a few years), but it definitely got very, very dry at times. So much so that a humidifier was necessary until I acclimated, the first time I ever needed one of those.
posted by empyrean at 1:08 AM on April 17, 2012

Best answer: Coastal northern California was my thought as well. I doubt there's anywhere you can stay in that narrow, 20-degree band of temperature all year, but cool and humid is doable. Winters will be very wet, but not very cold. What sort of work would you need to look for?
posted by jon1270 at 3:38 AM on April 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Another vote for Humboldt, though finding work in sf would be easier. SF has a lot of microclimates so you'd have to pick the right neighborhood. Even jusg across the bay in Oakland the weather is considerably drier and hotter.
posted by yarly at 4:19 AM on April 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best answer: If you look at San Francisco, try the city of Pacifica. It's about 20 minutes outside SF proper and there's usually fog covering the city, making it even cooler and more damp than the rest of the Bay.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:28 AM on April 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

Santa Barbara, Ventura, Oxnard and Camarillo are all consistently drier than San Francisco. When it's not raining, the winters especially can get quite dry, unless you are literally within a couple blocks of the ocean. Summers will also be hotter, with significant stretches above 80 and likely dry.

One thing to keep in mind if you move to California is that most houses are heated with forced hot air, which is very drying. You may find your housing options very limited in trying to avoid this.
posted by psycheslamp at 10:38 AM on April 17, 2012

Pacifica's a good call - small-town feel right on the ocean, and an easy shot into SF.

(If you acquire a house that's old enough, you don't have to worry about forced air heating. As I think about it, everyone I know who lives in a flat in a Victorian-era house here has a gas heater in the living room and maybe, maybe a gas wall heater in the bedrooms. Some have more recently installed electric baseboard heating. In my house, we've got two gas heaters and electric baseboards we never use. We wear a lot of sweaters.)
posted by rtha at 10:59 AM on April 17, 2012

Best answer: If you can handle colder winters, the whole of central Illinois is very humid -- Champaign is an especially livable city, from my experience.
posted by jabes at 12:16 PM on April 17, 2012 [1 favorite]

I seem to remember that central IL becomes extremely dry in the winter, although this might be largely due to heating of indoor air.
posted by polecat at 3:48 PM on April 17, 2012

The graphs of yearly average humidity on weatherspark.com are very helpful. Here's San Francisco and Santa Barbara.
They are almost the same, except the error bars are wider in Santa Barbara, reaching down to 20% in Santa Barbara, vs. 30% in San Francisco. I interpret that to mean there will be more randomly dry days in Santa Barbara over the year, while San Francisco will be more consistently humid.
posted by spaghettification at 12:59 AM on April 23, 2012