54 40 or fight!

I'm not well traveled, but just by familiarity with maps I would have listed the order of latitude of the cities just as you did.

The thing that surprised me as a child in school is that New York and Madrid were roughly the same latitude. NY (close to home) seemed way too cold!

It's true that NYC and PA have much the same weather and temps. I noticed it on our local weather that the temps are usually the same or a degree or two different.

False premise. I never thought of LA as being 'south', and I know that Chicago and Moscow have much the same weather.

What premise is false?

I think of LA as being "south"........because it is, at least from me! And at roughly 34 degrees N latitude, it is pretty much in line with Columbia, SC. And most folks consider SC as part of the 'south'.

The effect of the continental climate can easily be seen by comparing Chicago weather to that of Moscow........Moscow is 14 degrees more northerly than Chicago (roughly on the same plane as Glasgow, Scotland!!)

btw, outside of Alaska, Seattle is the most northerly located larger metropolitan area in the US, roughly equivalent to Newfoundland and Labrador. Yet our climate and plant hardiness zone (8/9) is far more mild than say for example, Duluth, MN (3/4), which is located slightly further south than Seattle. Even the 'lake effect' doesn't cut it compared to the moderating effect of ocean currents :-)

Elmer pointed out something that I've always known, since I grew up in the southern most city in Canada, Windsor Ontario, before moving to Toronto after college. We lived near the Detroit River, and whenever we looked across it, we were facing north, looking across at the U.S.!

In fact, many people might be surprised to know that 27 U.S. states are at least partially north of Canada's southernmost city, and 13 of your states are entirely north of where I grew up, in Canada. I can also attest from my travels, that many southern cities in Canada get milder winters than many northern American cities, even though as countries, you are of course our 'southern' neighbours...or rather, 'neighbors.' ;)

"What premise is false?"

Most people would have imagined Los Angeles is "pretty far South" and New York is "pretty far North", and that Miami would only be just a little South of Los Angeles, and Seattle would only be just a little North of New York City's latitude.

But the reality, if you draw lines of latitude across the map of the U.S., the distance between Seattle's line and New York's line would be a little bit larger than the line between Los Angeles and New York. And the same goes for Miami.

New York (cold as it is) is actually just a little bit further South in latitude than Rome (in Italy).

Another little remarkable fact, the people in Seattle are actually living further North than over half the population of Canada.

Amicus, I live in Windsor haha or what some call South Detroit

Hi cherryfizz! Actually, we've spoken before, when my forum name was picky shopper. When Houzz took over, and I finally found the KT forum, I got a message saying my user name was already taken...hence my name change to Amicus. (I remembered from Latin class (a long ago extinct High School course, lol) that it meant 'friend.' I was later told I could get my original name back, but I've used this for a while now, so I'll just stick with it.

I did wonder if you were Pickyshopper.

Portland, Oregon is actually farther north than Portland, Maine.

Look it up.

Probably counterintuitive to most people since, on the East Coast, Maine is the farthest north state, whereas on the West Coast, Oregon is between California and Washington.

If we draw a line through Milwaukee (Wisconsin), it would go through the far south of Oregon and go through the south of Upstate New York.

It's no coincidence that above this line there are not that many people, relatively speaking.

Minneapolis, which is in the southern half of Minnesota, is at about the same latitude as Salem, Oregon, in the middle of the state.

I can understand the confusion - look how most maps represent the US:

What amazes me is the fact that we used to live just 45 miles South of here and didn't realize that in the Winter we are at least 10 and sometimes 20 degrees colder than than it is there. Some kind of a micro-climate thing going on although I don't know what it is. We are at the same distance away from the gulf as we were then so I don't know what else would cause it.

Yeah, that is like thinking Oklahoma isn't far south... but compared to Frankfurt Germany it is... its more like the north of Africa!

Before moving to San Francisco (37.8°N), I lived in Houston (29.7°N), which is slightly south of Cairo, Egypt (30.04°N). I definitely felt that I was way north in SF, as that was by far the furthest north I had ever been when I moved there. I'd been to Brownsville TX (25.9°N), very close to the latitude of Miami. What I noticed in SF was that the days were much shorter in the winter and longer in the summer. Of course the sun would go down behind the hills (Twin Peaks) earlier than it would have if SF had been flat. In Houston, there was a lot less difference in day length between summer and winter. The furthest north I had been before moving to SF was Taos NM (36.4°N), but I considered Dallas to be very far north back then. Taos is still south of Algiers (36.75°N), but it seemed extremely far north to me when I went there, since it was even north of Dallas. Dallas and San Diego are both 32.7°N.

When I visited a friend in Vancouver, BC, he told me that he wanted to take me up north, and I said "I am up north". He then told me that this was southern Canada, and he wanted to take me to the Yukon. I never went.

This topic is so interesting.

Portland, Maine 43.6571

Portland, Oregon 45.5155

This is a pretty fascinating topic and one that most tend to generalize a lot, based on some preconceived notions we have about North American geography.

Outside of Alaska - which is pretty darn obviously "north" - most of the most northerly located US cities are found in WA state. Minnesota eeks out a slim margin as the most northerly situated continental US location as a jog in its northern border pokes above the 49th parallel at Lake of the Woods.

btw, Paris, France is located at about the same latitude: 48.48N. London, England is at 51.32N........comparable to Adak, Alaska

Illinois is surprising long in the NS direction. If a person were to travel in an approximately straight line from Milwaukee, WI to the Gulf of Mexico, the half-way point is at about Cairo, IL.

You will get a more accurate view of things in terms of latitude by looking at a Mercator projection of the US states.

https://www.your-vector-maps.com/us-states/-prewiev-of-usa-vector-map-mercator-projection-/?image=US-1USA

https://www.dplot.com/mercator-projection.htm

(The only downside with a Mercator projection is it makes the Northern states look slightly bigger and horizontally stretched out than they actually are)

" Illinois is surprising long in the NS direction. "

Yes, that's true. The southern third of Illinois is practically in the South, geographically and culturally.

(Yes, "the South" as in the Confederacy during the Civil War)

Most people in Chicago have never been to the South in their state, and vice versa.

Oh, and this is a garden forum, so I'll also point out that the indigenous flora of Southern Illinois has more in common with the rest of the Mississippi Delta region further south than it does with Northern Illinois.

Southern Illinois reminds me of some strange mixture between the "sophisticated" South (like Birmingham), the Midwest, and at the same time is reminiscent of the Mountain West.

It's a quintessentially "American" region, though has been gradually emptying out people since the end of WW2. If anyone is thinking about moving there, be warned, the Summers can get very hot and humid. Temperatures over 90 degrees and 90% humidity are not uncommon.

As I like to point out so often, even Olympia, WA is just a tiny bit further North than both Duluth, MN, and Quebec City, Canada.

Olympia, WA (where I am) is a two hour drive north of Portland, Oregon, but an hour south of Seattle. Olympia sits at the very southern end of the Puget Sound.

Duluth is the biggest city in Northern Minnesota (obviously north of Minneapolis), and Quebec city is pretty much the capital of Canada's Eastern Quebec region, further north than Toronto.

Despite being so far north in latitude, I have some gardenias and Yuzu (Japanese type of lemon/orange) that have survived outside here. I've posted more about this in other threads. (It's a special hybrid hardy gardenia type)

The 2017-2018 Winter was unusually mild and there were giant camellia bushes outside that were in bloom on New Years Day, and even the bananas (hardy ornamental basjoo variety) survived that year and did not die to the ground. That was the same Winter you had a devastating freeze on the East Coast. I read rosemary and palm plants got killed in Washington, DC.

" What I noticed in SF was that the days were much shorter in the winter and longer in the summer. "

There is definitely a difference. In Olympia, WA, during the deepest part of Winter the sky gets dark at about 4:20 pm and the street lights automatically turn on. Around the time of the Summer solstice the sun does not set until about 10:40 pm.

The seasons are much more dramatically pronounced at latitudes further towards the poles.

On that Vector map, Montana looks bigger than Texas, and Michigan is spelled "Michigen".

I've been collecting maps since I was a child, and when I moved to Houston, I would go downtown to where all the major oil companies had their massive buildings, and I could get free maps in the lobbies of any state, just by asking for them. My sister burned my map collection when she decided to declutter our parents' house, and I was between residences.