ClimateSeeker
Best Cities with Four Distinct Seasons

Photo by Konstantin Dyadyun on Unsplash

20 Best Cities with Four Distinct Seasons

Real four-season cities are rarer than people think. These have warm summers, genuine winter snow, and everything in between, without the extremes going far enough to be unpleasant on either end.

Kermanshah, Kermanshah Province leads with summer highs of 103°F (39°C) and winter lows cold enough for real snow, a genuine four-season range. What separates this list from a broader temperature ranking is the deliberate exclusion of extremes: cities here have real winters without brutal ones, and warm summers without oppressive heat. Both ends are bounded.

Mid-latitude geography dominates because that is where true four-season climates concentrate. The 12 countries across 4 continents cover a band of the northern hemisphere where neither polar cold nor tropical heat reaches far enough to erase the seasonal variation that defines this climate type. North America, Europe, and East Asia all appear prominently, for the same underlying geographic reason.

The snowfall column is worth examining before settling on a city. All entries here have between 5 and 100 snow days per year, but the difference between those endpoints is significant. The average across this list is around 7 snow days, which represents genuine winter without an overwhelming one. Cities toward the higher end have winters that are more demanding. The monthly chart on each city page shows what the actual curve looks like month by month.

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Cities are selected for geographic diversity, so nearby cities do not crowd each other out.

  1. 1
    Kermanshah
    Kermanshah Province, Iran
    Summer high103°F (39°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  2. 2
    Tashkent
    Tashkent, Uzbekistan
    Summer high98°F (37°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  3. 3
    Mashhad
    Razavi Khorasan, Iran
    Summer high92°F (33°C)
    Snow days: 6 days
  4. 4
    Yerevan
    Yerevan, Armenia
    Summer high91°F (33°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  5. 5
    Denver
    Colorado, United States
    Summer high89°F (32°C)
    Snow days: 7 days
  6. 6
    Pristina
    Pristina, Kosovo
    Summer high89°F (32°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  7. 7
    Kansas City
    Missouri, United States
    Summer high89°F (32°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  8. 8
    Kayseri
    Kayseri, Turkey
    Summer high89°F (32°C)
    Snow days: 12 days
  9. 9
    Spokane
    Washington, United States
    Summer high89°F (32°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  10. 10
    Stavropol'
    Stavropol Kray, Russia
    Summer high88°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 8 days
  11. 11
    Changzhi
    Shanxi, China
    Summer high88°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  12. 12
    Newark
    New Jersey, United States
    Summer high88°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  13. 13
    Sariwon-si
    North Korea
    Summer high88°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  14. 14
    Kabul
    Kabul, Afghanistan
    Summer high88°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 14 days
  15. 15
    Reno
    Nevada, United States
    Summer high87°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 11 days
  16. 16
    Indianapolis
    Indiana, United States
    Summer high87°F (31°C)
    Snow days: 6 days
  17. 17
    Adapazari
    Sakarya, Turkey
    Summer high87°F (30°C)
    Snow days: 6 days
  18. 18
    UEruemqi
    Xinjiang, China
    Summer high87°F (30°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  19. 19
    Sendai
    Miyagi, Japan
    Summer high86°F (30°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
  20. 20
    Oral
    Kazakhstan
    Summer high86°F (30°C)
    Snow days: 5 days
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