 |
You wouldn’t know it from the 90-degree temperature spikes across the region over the last few weeks, but Cherokee is the 20th-coldest county among the 10 warmest states.
I’ll wait while you go back, read that line again for some sense of clarity, then wipe the sweat off of your brow.
To answer your first question, yes, it’s exactly what you might think it is. An online media-related group, in this case Stacker.com, ranked more than 900 counties in the 10 coldest states in the continental United States to find the warmest based on average temperature between May 2022 and April 2023, citing National Centers for Environmental Information data.
To answer your second question, no, I have no idea why Stacker put valuable resources toward something like this, which essentially creates a talking point about something – the weather – that we were already talking about. Yet, here I am writing about it, which means it’s either really interesting or I desperately needed a column topic with early holiday deadlines this week.
OK, no more questions.
The warmest states are Florida, Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, Oklahoma and North Carolina. Stacker reports that western North Carolina counties dominate the list, thanks to the mountainous terrain, with north Georgia coming in a close second.
At No. 50 is Stokes County, based on an average temperature of 59.3 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.9 degrees lower than the state average, with an average high of 70.3 degrees and average low of 48.3 degrees. On the other end of the spectrum at No. 1 is Avery County, which has an average temperature of 51.7 degrees, 9.4 degrees lower than the state average, with an average high of 61.6 degrees and average low of 41.9 degrees.
In between those two are plenty of places you may know by heart:
- No. 38: Gilmer County, Ga.
- No. 24: Fannin County, Ga.
- No. 22: Union County, Ga.
- No. 21: Towns County, Ga.
- No. 18: Clay County.
- No. 13: Graham County.
- No. 12: Macon County.
Coming in at No. 20 is our fair Cherokee County, with its average temperature of 57.3 degrees, 3.8 degrees lower than the state average, to go with an average high of 69.8 degrees and average low of 44.9 degrees. That makes our home the 1,755th-coldest county in the country; feel free to use that during trivia night.
In case that’s not enough to peek your interest, thetravel.com placed Murphy at No. 4 on its list of “10 truly underrated towns in North Carolina that deserve to be explored.” Naturally, the website loved our “incredible natural scenery and a wide range of outdoor adventures.”
So, what does all this tell us? That the tri-state area we call home is every bit as beautiful and compelling as we already knew it was. That we should never take our county’s natural resources for granted. And that it’s always hotter – or colder – somewhere else.
David Brown is publisher of the Cherokee Scout. You can reach him by phone, 837-5122; email, dbrown@cherokeescout.com; or on Twitter @daviddBstroh.