Yeah, big +1 on seasons and variety. I grew up on the east coast so I guess I'm just kind acclimated to it, but I never got being so obsessed with the weather.

Like when I go outside and it's freezing, am I like "yay"? No. But there is a coziness to the winter I appreciate, getting to go inside and warm up. And then warmer weather starts to come, and you feel relieved by it, you get to actually be like "yay, Spring is here!", instead of just getting acclimated to it being spring all the time. You get to cycle through different fashion styles too (which until a few years ago I wouldn't have really thought about, but have started to care about more recently). I think happiness is more about deltas than steady state, and so I think it is actually nicer to get to experience the variety.

But even ignoring all of that, the fact that weather is so important to someone that they consider moving over it just feels so alien to me.

I guess people are different? I'm from a place where the difference between winter and summer is a lot, and as soon as I could moved to a place where the seasons are as even as possible. No need for change of clothing depending on the season and no risk of freezing in winter. Never been more happy, and the main reason for the move was indeed the weather.

Interesting, so this is something that you were like, actively conscious of as a source of unhappiness in your life? Like if someone had asked you, “what would you do to most improve your life?”, how high on the list would avoiding winter have been?

I live in New York, the delta is fairly significant, though I’m sure there’s worse places. I have heard of places in like e.g. remote Canada where it seems like life kinda just shuts down in the winter, I could definitely see that sucking.

Indeed. Between the end of autumn and middle of spring, my life basically shut down and I became borderline depressed for that period every year, until the sun started showing up and you no longer only had 4-5 hours of sunlight per day anymore.

And when I moved to a place with more even seasons (and more sunlight overall), I no longer experience this seasonal depression, so yeah, I'd definitely put "good weather" close to the top on the list on how to improve my life, and subsequently, it's a strong indicator on where I can live in the world.

I've lived in NE all my life, and I certainly enjoy all the seasons, but the summers are just a bit too long and hot and the winters are just a bit too long and cold. I think the perfect climate would be something like "New England, but spring/fall last as long as summer/winter, and vice versa."

I also like variety. I would've liked to see how closely the temperature distribution in a cell matches a normal distribution parameterized by the slider instead of how many days fall in that bucket. That would reward closer matches over places that just maintain one temperature.