Somewhere like Durbin sits right in the same band as the Tweed Coast Australia (Byron Bay, etc). Gold Coast and Rio are slightly more tropical, somewhere like Perth slightly less. In the Northern hemisphere: San Diego, Houston, Savannah (Georgia), the Canary Islands, The Levant, Kuwait and Shanghai are in that zone. A little more humidity and the Bahamas, Hawaii, The Whitsundays are looking pretty nice. I spent a couple of years in East Malaysia and once you get used to the humidity you stop checking the forecast as it's going to be 32c during the day/25c at night.
As an aside, there could be a correlation between nice temperature seaside places, and where you're mostly likely to run into a Great White shark if you go swimming.
But you are right, Houston is really not the same as it doesn't have a directly adjacent ocean and mountain backdrop and there's a big difference between sitting on the Pacific than sitting on the Gulf.
But even the nicest places can have bad weather events:
I live in JHB, have been for most of my life. Still not used to how cold it is in the winter.
But the creepy crawlies? C'mon - you're in Africa, what did you expect? In my experience, the benefit of moving to JHB from the east coast was the lack of creepy crawlies!
I grew up on the coast, and there's no end to the wildlife (including creepy crawlies ... maybe the occasional leopard).
The east coast of South Africa is a pain to live in; monkeys frequently raid the garden, large, flying cockroaches get into any food, people will frequently find frogs and/or crabs getting into their pools, snakes frequently getting into the house ...
I'd rather have the cold.
> The Parktown prawn or African king cricket
The term used in District 9 also comes from this
one of the sources has some funny stories/comics/attestations to the horror of prawns https://ourfiresidestories.com/the-parktown-prawn-chronicles...
Also, take into account that spring/summer is warmer, and construction practices also have to take this into account.
Johannesburg's rival, Cape Town, would also lay claim to "great weather".
I lived in Cape Town. Would not live there again.
Winter is very very cold, it rains every single day and the wind is insane, making you need warmer clothing than you would think.
Summer is very dry, it never rains and the mountain keeps catching fire which gets spread by the constant high-speed winds.
There are advantages though: six months ago I had an opportunity to relocate to CT, and realised that with the amount of constant strong wind it gets, I might be able to live completely off-grid using 4 - 6 wind turbines on the roof of the house.
I thought you would mention that it can be hot in CT in Jan-Feb, in the 30-40C range. But it's a dry heat.
> Winter is very very cold
Since it does not freeze in CT, not that cold. Not even as cold as JHB.
> it rains every single day
It does not typically constant rain every day in CT in winter (it's nothing like London, Dublin or Seattle in that regard) instead, storms bring strong wind and rain very few days, which abates and clears before the next cold front. I find this preferable to e.g. London's "long months of grey drizzle and dark at 4pm". It's certainly more eventful.
Wind speed is also not constant, and depends on where exactly you are, some areas are sheltered, some spots are "high-sided vehicles will blow over when there's a storm".
Thought you were talking about Perth, Australia there for a sec!
The running joke is 'it's a dry heat' when referring to the week long runs of 40+ degrees
https://movies.stackexchange.com/questions/69689/yeah-but-it...
I've been in Cape Town on 40+ Degrees C days.
It is dry there in summer. Parent comment about the mountain catching fire is "joking but also true(ish)".
There's sea on 3 sides of Cape Town but somehow, the summer heat is bone dry. I suppose it would be worse if it was damp.