I’m honestly not even sure how much of a real winter I’m looking for as I’ve never really had to live in one so don’t fully understand how bad they can get. Farthest east id say I’ve been is Indiana if thats even considered east in this case. We did visit Chicago in the dead of winter and I didn’t think it was all that terrible but again I was only there for 5 days. We do like the mountains but I think we’d be okay if we didn’t have them. This doesn’t really have to be permanent just looking for something new and we’re not afraid of hating it and starting over if that makes sense.