How's the weather? This is the first thing you should ask every time you receive a home exchange offer.
WEATHER WHOOPS!
San Francisco is famous for its mild climate, but it's actually colder, on average, in July than it is in October. How do I know this? Well, I lived in Northern California for over a decade and joined the rest of the locals in snickering at the summer tourists freezing in their shorts and t-shirts. But I also verified those happy memories by checking a weather almanac.
WHAT'S A WEATHER ALMANAC?
I'm not talking about one of those books farmers use to decide when to plant the corn field. A weather almanac looks at long-term trends in average temperatures, climate extremes, amount of precipitation each year and so on to provide a picture of what the weather tends to be like during each month of the year.
The resource I prefer is the on-line list of weather averages for cities around the world and in the USA from the otherwise dumbed-down national newspaper "USA Today".
Here is their list weather averages for world-wide cities: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/climate/worldcli.htm
And their United States cities' weather averages: http://www.usatoday.com/weather/resources/climate/wusaclim.htm
A GRAIN OF SALT
A picture of weather averages can be misleading. Sometimes purposely so. For instance, tourism sites often list temperature averages that take the daily high and the daily low temperatures, add them together and divide by two! So a desert area with daily highs that could cause an egg to fry on the sidewalk but night-time temps below freezing looks balmy and temperate.
Weather averages are generally broken down by month. This can create a false impression that the climate is generally the same at the beginning of the month and at the end of that same month. That will be true in some areas, like San Francisco, but dangerously false in others.
I live in Manhattan, where the average high temperature in both July and August is in the low 80's (28 celsius). But wait! September's high averages just 75 (24c) while June is hotter at 79 (26c). That means the hottest time of year in Manhattan is mid-July to mid-August. The end of August, on average, will be much cooler than the beginning of July.
TEMPERATURE AIN'T EVERYTHING
As my readers already know, we're boycotting Florida due to its discriminatory laws that make travel there dangerous for families headed by unmarried or same-sex couples. Then there's the fact that much of Florida is also known as "hurricane alley". Granted, serious tropical storms rarely hit Florida outside of the May through October period, but that's half the year.
Hundreds of home exchangers have offered me Florida accommodations during the summer and no one has ever mentioned the fact that unpleasant weather is the rule in Florida during those months. I'm talking about temperatures in the 90's, high humidity and eight or more inches or rain per month in many areas of Florida. Make sure to check out precipitation, humidity (sometimes expressed as "dew point") and violent weather in each region before agreeing to a swap there. Not to mention the legal situation.
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