Best Reason to Live in Yuma: The Weather

Never mind the friendly people. Never mind the Yuma area's many other positive attributes.

Respondents in Yuma's Best, the Yuma Sun poll of readers' preferences, chose the local weather as the Best Reason to Live Yuma in 2010.

The weather was also picked as the Best Reason to Live in Yuma in the poll for 2009.

And no wonder. In December, for example, while other parts of the nation are under many inches or feet of snow, Yuma's average temperature is a high of 69, according to statistics from The Weather Channel.

Sixty-nine degrees is short-sleeve weather as far as many people are concerned, among them the tens of thousands of people who travel to the area from Washington, Oregon and other northern states to bask in the mild winter climate.

Highs gradually rise over the first few months of the new year, from 70 in January to the low to mid-90s in May. Over the same period, lows go up from the mid-40s to the mid-60s.

Sure, the highs hover in the triple-digit ranges from June through September and even into October, and contrary to the frequently repeated myth, the heat in Arizona in general and Yuma in particular is not always dry.

Still, there are places more humid than Yuma. And for many residents, the three or four months of heat we have to endure is a small price to pay for the moderate temperatures and mainly sunny skies we enjoy two-thirds of the year.

So what finished in second place in the polls of best reasons to live in Yuma in 2010? Respondents said it was “everything!”

And in third place? The area's people, respondents said.