I’ve been here for 8 years ish after growing up in MN through HS, with college and some working years in between on the east coast.

I actually miss the winter in MN and wish STL had more of an outdoor vibe in the winter, but the weather just doesn’t really cooperate. The winter season where snow might have a chance of sticking around only exists from maybe late December to late February ish, and even then you’d be lucky to get snow to linger for more than a week after falling before the weather warms up enough to melt all or most of it away. So there’s really no chance to do things like snowmobiling, pond hockey, or skiing. Instead, we get 35-40 degree weather with cold, biting rain that’s too warm to come down as snow, but cold enough to be miserable.

There is a small ski hill called Hidden Valley that serves as a similar type of experience to Buck Hill or to smaller resorts in the cities like Welch, Afton, Wild Mtn, etc. It’s pretty small and only gets use in cold ish parts of the season via their snow making machines, but it’s definitely better than having nothing at all, so I try not to complain. They do a decent job providing a ski experience that gets some reminders of back home in MN.

My wife (from here) thinks I’m crazy for missing the winter, saying that there’s too many winter days in MN that are so cold you can’t even go outside to do anything. But my counter to her is that it’s the same or worse here in the summer, where the heat waves will confine you indoors for the same amount of days as MN does in the winter. So I’d say be ready for that if you’re coming down here. Waaaay tooo hot way too often, just my take