What is the weather like there in the winter? Very cold? Snowy?
I’ve recently dabbled with the idea of moving to Ashland or Medford. (Have kinfolk there.) But I don’t tolerate cold well, and worry about being any place where it snows in winter.
Are there killer whales one could go swimming with in the waters nearby?
I’ve been to Eugine and Portland many times but never lived there. My best friend’s been trying to talk me into moving there. I’m tempted as it is so beautiful out there but the sky gets crappy most of times as they call a little bit of sunshine in the morning that you might see a “Sucker hole”.
I like those two cities as they are hip but perhaps a bit over the top:
“Too much of everything is too much for me~” - The Who
Actually I’m trying to talk myself into moving there.
Medford is a fucking pit (sorry). Ashland is a nice town with a great Shakespeare festival every year. Both are down in the “banana belt”, which means sweltering summers and snowy, cold winters at times. Portland’s winters can be very wet (like last year), but this year has not been bad at all. It’s been colder than usual, with temps flirting with freezing at night and in the high 40s for much of January. We had about 2" of snow that disappeared the same day. This week is sunny and 50s and the tulips are already poking their heads up.
Killer whales? Orcas don’t frequent rivers.
As someone in a southern state who’s entertaining the idea of moving to Oregon, please define “sweltering” in this context.
I live about 3 hours south of Portland and an hour and a half north of Medford (which, like Chefguy said, is a complete dump of a city, not that mine’s any better…) Anyway, the summers can get hot in August & September: well into the 90s at times. Here it occasionally hits 100, but I’m in a sort of basin that seems to hold the heat in the summer. Even when it hits 100 it is a fairly dry heat, I work in the yard all summer long and the heat isn’t enough to send me inside. It’s pretty dry. Portland seems to have more intense weather than the rest of the valley; sitting at the end of the gorge has a lot to do with that.
Chefguy’s description of winter is spot-on. It can seem like constant clouds and drizzle from November through May. (Well, usually. This year has been dry and cold. Having lived here for 30 years, though, I’ll say that isn’t the norm.) The Umpqua and Willamette valleys rarely have snow on the valley floor, even this time of year. Bend, on the east side of the mountains, gets lots of snow but has warm, dry summers.
I live in Texas, where +100 temps in the summer are the norm, and we’re in one of the most severe droughts in history.
90 degrees and drizzle sounds like heaven. 
No. But Sasquatches kidnap kittens and small children quite often. They don’t keep them long. They are always returned within an hour. You find them in the chicken coops. If you don’t have a chicken coop, check the recycling bin. Everyone has a recycling bin.
The mountain lions are a different story though.
No drizzle at 90 degrees. From July 1 through at least the end of August and maybe even September, there is no rain, or at least it’s sparse. But it gets very hot for this poor ol’ Alaska boy, which is why we had a heat pump installed. I can take it up to about 80, but above that I start panting like a dog. There were times when we opted out of attending a zoo concert because of the heat.
For cooler weather, there is always escape to the Oregon Coast, one of nature’s spectacular creations. Rugged, wild and beautiful, and nearly completely accessible to the public. Many people own a second vacation house out there, but we opted for a small RV and we stay in the state campgrounds, which are meticulously maintained. Most of them have a lot of trees so you’re not in your neighbor’s lap. There are also a lot of Forest Service campgrounds in the state.
East of the mountains there is the whole John Day area, which has many geologic marvels and scenic rivers. We spent about ten days out there last year and managed to avoid the worst of the summer heat, which can be brutal in eastern Oregon. Bend is a hugely popular town for outdoor tourism and skiers. It’s population has skyrocketed over the last 30 years.
And then there is the gem tucked way up in the northeast corner of the state called Wallowa County. It’s rural farm country, but situated on the lower slopes of the Wallowa Mountains, which are beautiful. Forest Service roads climb up into the mountains, following stream valleys. At the top of one of them is an overlook for the Snake River’s Hell’s Canyon on the Idaho border. My cousin lives in the town of Enterprise, and we were impressed with the area. Alas, the towns are too tiny for us, and the politics are hard right, although they don’t seem to push it.
Duckster: these days everybody has four recycle bins and a slop bucket inside the house.
As stated winters are cool and wet but rarely snowy. Both highs and lows in the 40s usually. I think there were probably about 3 significant snowfalls (2-3 inches) in the 4 winters I spent there. Basically there is just clouds with a 50% chance of slow drizzle from October through March. This monthis pretty typical.
Some may find this depressing but for me it would just have the effect that the occasional sunny day would put me in a state of manic euphoria.
Ashland and Medford are in the southern part of the state which is a whole different ball game as far as weather goes.
What a great thread. I’ve wanted to settle in Oregon since I was 13, mostly for the weather and the progressiveness.
Somewhat topically, how would you say fat people are treated there? I’d never move to LA as a fat person, because I imagine I wouldn’t feel welcome at all. Is Portland any different?
Yeah, I should have been more specific: some place that’s 90 degrees in the summer and actually *has *rainfall would be delightful.
The missus and I spent a few days up there in December in a whirlwind tour of Seattle, Portland, and Olympic NP. Here’s a shot I took of the lovely Cannon Beach, west of Portland. It’s absolutely beautiful up there!
Portland and Eugene seem very open to everyone. I live in Roseburg, which is a fairly closed-minded community. Same with Medford, Grants Pass and Klamath Falls. Don’t know about Bend. In my experience you are judged more by your politics than your physical appearance. Again, I don’t live in Portland but have family there and visit often. I feel much more at home in Portland than in Roseburg.
As an aside, I didn’t realise there were many Oregon Dopers. Makes me think we should do a dopefest this summer.
I sure wouldn’t describe the weather in Ashland that way. I’ve lived here off and on since 1999 (middle and high school, college up in Washington State, and now back here for work) and it’s really never “sweltering” unless you’re an Alaskan. A very hot August day is 100 degrees, and I’ve never seen 110 here. If you’re coming from the South or East like I did, though, you’ll think it’s heaven because it’s never humid, and dry heat is quite tolerable. Last summer never broke 95, and even that was very short lived. It cools off to 50 or 55 every night in the summer, too, so you get some relief. The winters are pretty mild compared to the East or Midwest; you’ll get snow that sticks maybe four times a year, and most years it never sticks around for more than two days. You can get some great snow up in the hills around town, though, if you’ve got a hankering. We’ve got a much more Mediterranean climate-- warm sunny summers, cool wet winters.
If you move fifty miles east of here, to Klamath Falls, you’ll get summer temps rarely over 95 and winters so snowy that you get snowdrifts that last until June, snow flurries during your 4th of July fireworks, and so on. I’ll refrain from commenting about the town itself.
And as an imported Ashland snob (no one here is a native, they’ve all moved in), I have to agree- Medford is lousy. It’s a point of pride. 
It’s a little hard to say, not being especially heavy myself. It’s definitely one of the thinner states in the country, and so a fat person might stick out more, but I’d also say that the culture is less body-conscious than L.A., not that that’s saying much.
We’d have to figure out where. The Oregon Country Fair might be fairly central, or y’all could come down south and see some shows.
A Shakespearean Dopefest? Awesome… or maybe during Britt Fest? I confess I’ve never been to either one. Eugene/Salem is likely more central. Anyway, that’s a topic for another thread. I am glad, however, to know I’m not the only Oregon Doper. Thought I was, with the exception of Czarcasm
It’s a very fit place. Most people seem to bicycle, run, walk or work out in some fashion. Obesity doesn’t seem to be as common as many places I’ve been. That said, it’s a very accepting place, and people don’t seem to be very judgmental. At least not to your face; couldn’t say what happens when you’ve left the room :p. However: it sort of inspires one to lose some weight. I’ve shed about 30 pounds in the last year, as I don’t like being the biggest guy in the room, regardless of how accommodating other folks are. People seem to want to exchange ideas more than they want to gossip or bad-mouth others.
Thanks for all the answers to my question!
This is kind of what I’m thinking. I know I would be happier in a more progressive place, and I’m more likely to *want *to walk and bike in mild drizzly weather–especially in a place where non-car transportation is so well-supported by the community and by taxes. It would certainly beat the blazing sun of a humid midwestern summer, or the putrid cold of a midwestern winter. The few times I get motivated to actually take a walk, the weather doesn’t tend to be very supportive of it here.
You’d probably be relatively happy in any part of Western Oregon. (Eastern Oregon more closely resembles Idaho both culturally and physically.) There’s some local variation, of course, but most places tend more liberal than the national average and the weather really isn’t extreme if you’re under 3,000 feet of elevation.
Nothing to add that hasn’t already been said, but I do want to give more of a shout out to the public transportation here. It is screamingly easy to get around, the real-time TriMet phone App, website, or just calling the phone number and giving the stop ID is superb. Also very pedestrian / bike friendly. I very, very rarely drive anywhere.
I knew of a couple, but there’s more in this thread I didn’t know about. Czarcasm was at my block party. The only Doper I’ve ever met in person. 
There is one bike trail here called the Springwater that goes for 40 miles, all paved. Some of it routes through city streets. People commute to work via this trail. We live on a “bike boulevard”, which means it’s bike-friendly, with speed bumps, no stop signs, and vehicle choke points to slow traffic down. Bicycle lanes are found on many busy streets.
Public transit is good, but it’s short of great. There have been cutbacks in routes and frequency in some areas. On weekends and holidays, for example, service to our 'hood is about once per hour, which can be a pain in the ass for attending events downtown. That said, as retired people we put very little mileage on our car, using public transit extensively. I think I filled the tank a week and a half ago, and have put 55 miles on the car since then. There is still a free zone downtown, but that’s probably going to go away as Tri-Met tries to meet budgets.
Downtown is largely paid parking or limited time parking, particularly in the denser areas. It isn’t cheap, but parking tickets are expensive. The fine for not having a valid metro ticket is $170, and they’re getting more aggressive about checking transfers.
As for walking: everybody seems to do it. Streets and stores are always busy with pedestrians. We basically made up our minds that the rain is a stupid excuse to be lazy, so we walk rain or shine. That’s why they make jackets with hoods.
Hey, Morbo: I was going to come to your party, but must have been distracted by something shiny. More likely I just forgot.
