[colindean]

Brutal is pretty relative. I grew up about an hour north of Pittsburgh and moved into the city about eight years ago. I find Pittsburgh's weather to be abnormally sane for the area. Pittsburgh doesn't get the extremes that much of a Rust Belt gets. Even 35-50 minutes outside the city gets four or five times the snow. Sure, the temperature gets into the single digits for a couple of weeks (negatives with wind chill, but I've found there's not much wind in a Pittsburgh winter), but most of our summers don't exceed 90˚F. I can heat and cool a 1400 sq ft house for under $200/mo with gas heating and electric A/C, plus a house full of geeky electronics, a house inhabited by people who chronically forget to turn things off.

What's brutal to me? North Dakota. Montana. Maine. Vermont and New Hampshire. Northern New York and its Buffalo area.

[johnward]

Stockholm syndrome. Pittsburgh gets less direct sunlight per year than Seattle. 6 months of the year you basically can't go outside without freezing your face off. It's still snowing in April...