Rating

Low Cold Impact

Scale56-100

Higher values are better.

About This Ranking

Goal

Highlight places with less recurring cold impact by combining the approved thermometer-cold burden with freezing and subzero wind-chill persistence.

Sources

3 sources

1991-2020 normals

Data: NOAA NCEI 1991-2020 annual/seasonal and hourly station normals matched from a representative named-community point using nearby-station distance and elevation fit.
What it tells us: Supplies thermometer-cold burden and recurring apparent-cold persistence at nearby stations; it is a representative-point climate proxy rather than a full place-boundary measurement.

Current dedicated Target Elevation fact run

Data: Official Populated Place coordinates and Census place codes used to select a community-core point instead of a potentially unrepresentative boundary centroid.
What it tells us: Identifies the named settlement point sampled for elevation; unmatched places and a documented reviewed geography exception retain their Census internal point explicitly.

Current dedicated Target Elevation fact run

Data: Bilinear terrain-elevation sample at the representative community coordinate selected for each place, with a small nearby-sample fallback for exact no-data cells.
What it tells us: Provides the representative place elevation used to measure distance from the selected target; it does not describe the full elevation range within the place.

Ranked by Low Cold Impact.

Check a town

See its rating and position without leaving this ranking.

Loading top locations...

Each county is shaded by the rated town nearest its center. Zoom in for exact Census town boundaries.

Explore every rated town

The zoomable nationwide map loads automatically as you approach it.