Have you spent much time in the midwest?

Yes. I'm from Chicago.

Then have you spent much time outside the midwest? (fish, water, etc)

I put 180,000 miles on my first car, traveling the country, and I'm on my fifth vehicle. I've lived on both coasts. The only mid-sized+ city I haven't been to, weirdly enough, is New Orleans. It's on my list.

And you?

Unless you're moving to the South Sandwich Islands or Greenland, who cares about weather? The idea of selecting a place to move based on weather is completely strange to me.

I can see why you might not mind the Chicago weather, but how is moving somewhere based on weather "strange"? I grew up in Minneapolis but now live in Texas, and the warmer weather has dramatically improved my quality of life. I wouldn't move back to the north midwest even for a massive increase in pay.

Look at average highs in Las Vegas: http://www.vegas.com/weather/averages.html

June - September is pretty damn hot. I wouldn't want to be caught outside during the day.

The desert southwest is very hot during the summer. Yes, it is a dry heat. But if it's 110 degrees F, I don't care if it's dry. That said, a lot of people are fine with Vegas, Phoenix, and so forth. They don't get a lot of bad weather (aside from the summer heat), they can play golf year round, and they just tend to stay somewhere air conditioned during the middle of the day. Not my thing but it is for a lot of people. (And while I don't like Vegas, there are lots of nice locations relatively nearby during the cooler parts of the year.)

Have you lived through a Chicago winter?

What does 'midwestern' mean?

It's a region of the United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midwestern_United_States).

I know that - but the user used it as a sarcastic term that could have 100 different connotations.

I was asking him to clarify.

Think of all the bad stereotypes of white lower middle class suburbanites. They are based on the people of the midwest.