Oh that's funny, I live in Maine and I miss Tucson. I used to live there years ago, of course it's changed a lot since my day. I can remember when you'd drive to the end of Speedway you could see a windmill off in the distance, now it's houses for miles out there.

I was born here in Tucson but moved when I was 4. I've lived in AR and Ky. I just got back here a few years ago and I hate the fact that I see so much litter lining the road. I also hate the summer heat. I do like the fact that I can garden year 'round.

So what's it like where you live?

We can only garden about 6-7 months out of the year and that is pushing it in Apr. and Oct. Not much grows after early Oct. and I take advantage of the fall by spending time building my soil, mulching, digging new beds, etc.

Winters can be awful, and I live in the southern part of the state. Sometimes bitter cold, sometimes the snow is 3' deep. Usually a few good ice storms thrown in. Days are short and not much sunlight. A lot of people that live here enjoy the season, but I'm not a winter person. This year we are having a mild winter, it hasn't been that cold (mostly 30s) and not too much snow (yet). I hope it remains that way, but it's not unheard of to have a snowstorm in April. Those are the times we wished we lived in Tucson!

Summers can get surprisingly hot. Of course nothing like Tucson, but we usually get a few days where the temp approaches 100F. And when it's hot, it's humid. I live close to the ocean and we can usually cool off there.

It is overall a nice place to live, as far as my community, but you'd want to look into property values, taxes, etc. as the cost of living in most of Maine is known to be overpriced.

Housing has gotten extremely expensive in Kennebunk.
When I moved here about 8 years ago I was surpised at how much more bread cost, for example, than it did in western PA.
ICE. I really hate the ice. I hate ice storms. I loathe them. Trying to walk across the yard, or the hill where you take the kids sledding is such a pain. Take a step...crunch,plunk, through the ice layer into the soft snow underneath, drag out your foot, crunch, plunk, do it again.
It has been a nice winter so far. Fall was great too. We enjoyed it.Summer seemed to want to linger as long as she could.

I live in Brooksville, which is on the east side of Penobscot Bay. I grew up in New England, including first to fourth grade in "southern" maine, which is how they refer to the south western corner of the state. In many ways I'm in the same climate as veilchen, but there are some subtle differences.

Summer rain is often in the form of brief thundershowers. These often start in the mountains of New Hampshire and then blow east. Maine's western mountains get hit hardest, but the inland mid-coast gets regular soakings too. There have been some years when I've watched hopefully as the storms drift my way, only to fall flat when they get over the cool water of Penobscot Bay. Then I have to go start the gas powered pump to water the garden. It can be real hit and miss too: Sometimes places just a few miles north or south get watered while we don't.

Furthermore, there's a big difference between coastal areas and the more northern areas. Just the other week, Fort Kent got three feet of snow, while we got a light rain.

Dan

Thank you all for the good information. I think that if I got the chance to move to Maine it would have to be where I could find good doctors etc as I have a myriad of health problems.

A few days at 100 instead of a month or more of over 100 degree heat sounds wonderful. LOL I love snow and winter myself. Keep in mind that when the monsoon starts up here (July-Sept or Oct) it is very humid as well as hot and that sometimes we have a lot of heat for an extended period of time. Here lately we have been in the 80's and that's not normal for us at this time of year. It's been an odd winter. There have been no mountain snows which will mean more wild fires. I like it here but don't look forward to summer at all. LOL

Someday I would love to live in Maine. It seems like I am driven to try and make that dream come true. It's as if something is calling me. LOL Maybe it's the snow.

Humid for us is 90%. It could be worse. I understand humid in Maryland is 98% or more. What does "Very Humid" mean in Aridzona?

Dan

Humid is about the same here during monsoon season. Just because it's monsoon season does not necessarily mean that it's raining the whole time or even every day but the humidity is there right along with the 100 degree heat.

Where I used to live in Ky we sometimes had 100% humidity so I know how it feels.

The other day we only had 8% humidity here. It's very dry right now and we're hoping for some rain.