What to expect, what does it mean to have four mild seasons, what exactly they look
like.
Weather and climate in Asheville, North Carolina is what I am going to be talking about in
this video.
Don't go anywhere.
Hi, this is Elena Kovrigin with Nesting Dolls Realty at Realty One Group Pivot here in Asheville,
North Carolina.
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emailed me who are thinking about relocating to Asheville.
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Information is right there.
I got your back here in Asheville, North Carolina.
Some of you might know that I've been here in the Asheville area for about 16 years,
since 2004.
And when I started working on this video, I thought, well, I should probably get other
people's perspectives about this topic.
So I went and asked fellow moms in one of their moms' groups on Facebook how they would
describe our weather, climate, and if it feels humid to them, because that's one of the things
that I keep hearing from a lot of people.
So here are the answers that I got.
Not too humid.
I'm a native, but our weather is unpredictable.
I never listened to the forecast because it will be wrong.
I came from Atlanta.
It's not humid, but there is a lot of moisture in the air, if that makes sense.
Coming from Colorado, it's very humid here, which makes it feel a lot hotter.
Our average temperatures are the same, but Colorado is dry rather than humid.
There's also not near as much snow here.
The winters here in North Carolina are very mild.
I'm from Asheville, but over the past decade have been in Charleston, Jacksonville, Savannah,
Houston.
Compared to those cities, Houston in particular, it doesn't feel humid at all.
Very happy to be home and to be able to actually be outside in summer.
I'm from South Carolina.
Asheville is a dream, not humid.
Coming from Sacramento where 30 is humid, it's very humid here.
Coming from Houston, the humidity is nothing.
Rain, so much rain, but not many severe thunderstorms.
Just lots of rain showers all year long.
Humidity is so much better here than in Tennessee.
The mountains keep temperatures about 10% degrees cooler than South Carolina and Tennessee.
I'm from New York City and DC and the humidity here is so much more manageable than those
places.
The key is we get the mountain cool down every night, which is amazing.
I've lived in New Hampshire, New York, DC, Florida.
It's humid here.
I'm from Florida.
Weather here is amazing.
[Russian] That was one of my Russian friends who decided to make comment in Russian.
There is no comparison in the humidity to Southwest Florida to Asheville.
I've been here for a full year and the weather is beautifully unpredictable.
I'm from San Francisco.
I would describe the weather as pleasant, not extreme, four seasons, and fairly humid.
I'm from South Carolina and the humidity here is nothing compared to there.
It's harder in South Carolina too.
So many mosquitoes equals humid.
Humid and so full of allergens, but I came from Colorado where it's dry and there are
only aspens and pines.
This is an assault to my senses.
So as you could see, all these answers were kind of all over the place.
So I decided to talk to a scientist.
Laura Stevens: Hi, my name is Laura Stevens, and I'm a climate scientist with the North
Carolina Institute for Climate Studies.
In scientific terms, we refer to several climate zones throughout the United States, and Asheville
is in what we call a humid subtropical climate.
So basically that means that we get nice warm but humid summers and pretty mild pleasant
winters.
Of course, this differs at different elevations throughout the area.
And a lot of people in Asheville live between about 2,000 and 5,000 feet above sea level.
So the higher you go, the colder it's going to be.
Actually, this is a fun weather fact, named by the weather channel as one of America's
safest weather cities.
So that's because of these mountains here.
We rarely get tornadoes, and we're far enough away from the coast that we don't get really
devastating effects from hurricanes.
In terms of precipitation, that's quite variable across the region.
Asheville is actually one of the driest parts of the entire state of North Carolina.
And only 50 miles from here down in Lake Toxaway in Transylvania County, that's the wettest
part of the whole state.
That's because warm moist air is pushed up against the mountains, dumps all the rainfall
down there, and then there's not as much left for Asheville.
That being said, we do get a nice amount of rainfall spread throughout the year and that
gives us a nice green grass all year long.
Elena Kovrigin: And there you have it.
You had opinions of all the different people who moved here from all over the United States
and then you had a scientific explanation.
So if you come in from places like Colorado, Arizona, California, you will think and you
will feel like it's very humid in here.
And it is more humid.
We have more rain.
Everything is super green.
All that rain keeps everything super green.
You're going to think and feel like we have a lot more mosquitoes and bugs, but that I
feel like depends on the area.
For example, at my house, we don't have a lot of mosquitoes, a lot of bugs, but I know
some other parts of town or neighborhood even in some other places, they might have more
bugs.
And that also depends on if you're close to water.
If you have some creeks and streams and ponds and lakes that are kind of breeding ground
for all the mosquitoes, chances of you being eaten alive more, but it's all relative.
Yes, you're going to feel like there's more moisture and more bugs here if you are coming
from those States on very dry States.
But when it comes to different seasons, spring starts early.
Super mild.
Everything start blooming.
We have such a big variety of trees, shrubs, flowers that are blooming.
It's so beautiful so gorgeous in here in the spring time.
Springtime also brings a lot of allergens.
Before we moved to here, I never knew what an allergy was.
I never had an allergy.
And when I got here, I got hit so hard with all allergies, seasonal allergies.
They only happened in the springtime and then they were gone.
It got better.
I really had allergies for just a few years, and now like maybe just a few sneezes here
and there in the springtime, but not as much.
Springtime also brings with all the blooms.
Everything is blooming in and growing a lot of pollen.
You might see and experience all that pollen on your porches, on your decks, on your houses
even, on your cars.
You wash your car and a couple of hours later, you see green all over your windshield or
all over your car.
So that's typical for springtime.
Like I said, springs are very mild and warm, but they still recommend to wait until after
Mother's Day to plant out your tender perennials and tender annuals and things like tomatoes
and basils and things like that if you're into gardening.
So wait until after Mother's Day.
Summers are very mild.
We do have a lot of thunderstorms.
Sometimes even rainy days that stay here for a few days, but generally very mild.
A thunderstorm comes and goes.
If they're calling for rain, you might have a thunderstorm, a lot of rain going on.
It happen in one side of the town, but not on the other.
And that's why people would refer to it as unpredictable because when they're calling
for rain or snow, it happens.
And when they don't, it does or the other way around.
Anyways, when it rains during summer, well, any season really, when we have a lot rain,
a lot of streets, a lot of valleys can get flooded real easy.
Those little creeks and streams that don't look like anything, they look just like maybe
even dried up, they can get filled up real quick during those flash floods or lots of
rain and heavy rains.
And they can flood the streets, parking lots, people's houses.
So you got to watch for that.
You got to watch for flood maps.
If you are looking to buy a house, it's something to think about, because you're going to have
to pay flood insurance and that can be costly.
And because we live kind of like in a bowl surrounded by mountains, we really just like
Laura said and a lot of other people said that we don't have pretty big natural disasters.
We don't have tornadoes.
We don't have nothing like that.
And when those tornadoes and big storms that are happening on the coast and we hear about
them, what they do is they dump a lot of rain on our region and maybe some strong winds
that might take some trees down, and those trees might take power lines or even damage
some homes and property.
But that's basically as bad as it gets here.
Fall is probably as beautiful as springtime.
We have a lot of tourists visit our area during fall.
All these mountains are covered with trees, all kinds of different trees.
And when they start changing leaves, it's such a beautiful scene.
End of October, beginning of November, that's the most beautiful part of fall.
Fall is also very mild.
To me, to a person who came from Siberia, it feels like we don't really have winter
and fall kind of slowly turns into springtime.
I mean, yes, in the past, we had some colder winters with two or three big snows.
Big enough for kids to play and sleigh and make snowman, and it stayed on the ground
for maybe two or three days.
In the past few years, we only had maybe like one good snow for kids and our four kids to
play outside, and then it pretty much melts right away the next day or two days after.
We live kind of in the Valley.
I don't live on top of the mountain.
And every time they call for snow and we just saw flurries maybe at best.
People who live literally 10 minutes away from us up on top of the mountain had snow
every time.
So quick change in elevation will bring snow.
You'll see some more snow.
But here on the bottom in the valleys, not so much.
Maybe freezing rain or everything will just freeze.
And that's probably one of the biggest dangers here during winters is when it freezes.
Black ice is very dangerous.
We don't have straight roads.
Our roads are windy and up and down, so it's very dangerous.
And people who are not used to driving in these conditions...
Well, let me just put it this way, it takes them some time to learn.
Usually it's not a good experience.
You really have to slow down.
Slow down people and drive slow.
But best of all, just stay home.
As soon as they call for a big snow, big storm, everyone go to the grocery store to buy bread
and milk for their bread and milk sandwiches and stay home.
That's the safest and the best thing you can do.
Schools have been canceled so many times just when they call for snow.
Because again, if you live in the valley, if you live in town, you're probably not going
to see snow and you are wondering, well, why the heck did they cancel schools?
But those more remote communities up on top of the mountain, those roads become very treacherous
and dangerous and school buses can't go on those roads and it's very dangerous.
And there were cases when school buses got into accidents on those roads.
So they try to take more precautions sometimes when it feels like necessary, but they're
just trying to keep all the kids safe.
And kids sometimes miss a lot of school because of that, but safety first.
Obviously all the leaves are gone.
The trees are bare.
It's kind of looks bluh, kind of gray.
Not very exciting.
When it snows, it's so pretty.
Everyone loves it.
Well, not everyone, but a lot of people love it.
Kids love it.
I love it.
I miss it.
I want more snow in my life, but it's still very beautiful.
Those who had maybe some...
Some views from their properties will have more winter views when all the leaves are
gone and it makes it very beautiful, and then spring again and it starts all over.
One interesting thing about this area is that if you're into gardening and things like that,
you can grow produce here all year round.
I mean, it's not going to be everything.
You can grow tomatoes and cucumbers all year around, but you can grow some hardy plants.
Years ago, I went to this class.
It was a gardening for parrots because we used to have a little parrot.
And it was in February and they demonstrated how they've been growing all the kinds of
stuff, beets and stuff and kale, in wintertime.
I mean, so that's possible, so that's a great thing.
If you want to know more about what it's like to live in Asheville, check out these videos.
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I will see you next time.