Climatologists Ranked Every U.S. Region by Long-Term Livability – This One Came in Dead Last

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For years, the conversation about climate change and where to live focused mostly on individual states or cities. Lately, though, researchers have started zooming out, looking at entire regions and how they’ll likely hold up over the coming decades as heat, water, and storms reshape the map. The findings aren’t exactly shocking if you’ve been paying attention to insurance premiums or wildfire smoke drifting across state lines, but seeing it laid out region by region still makes for an uncomfortable read for a lot of Americans.

Pacific Northwest: the closest thing to a safe harbor

Among the regions climatologists and resilience researchers tend to praise, the Pacific Northwest keeps showing up near the top. Cities like Portland, Spokane, and Seattle benefit from mild temperatures, dependable rainfall, and a relative lack of hurricane or extreme heat exposure compared to the rest of the country. The Pacific Northwest shines as a climate-resilient region.

That doesn’t mean the region is problem-free. Seattle and Portland face inland flooding risks from more extreme rainfall, while wildfires are a major issue for rural areas and smaller cities near forests. Still, compared to the risks piling up elsewhere, these are manageable headaches rather than existential threats.

Northern New England: quietly becoming a climate refuge

Vermont and New Hampshire keep landing at or near the top of nearly every resilience ranking, and the reasoning is fairly consistent across studies. The Northeast offers better prospects, particularly Vermont and New Hampshire, which rank as the two safest states from climate change. Vermont in particular gets singled out for what it lacks. Vermont stands out as a haven, free from wildfires, extreme heat, and hurricanes.

People have noticed. The state’s appeal is so strong that one-third of its new residents moved there specifically to escape the impacts of climate change. New Hampshire tells a similar story, with fewer severe weather events, particularly wildfires, flooding, and heat-related emergencies, making it a naturally more climate-resilient option for homeowners.

Great Lakes region: an underrated contender

Michigan and its neighbors rarely get the attention that coastal states do, but the numbers tell a favorable story. The Great Lakes State takes the top spot in our index thanks in large part to its fairly low susceptibility to most of the major climate threats. It’s not a region without any weak spots, but nothing stands out as a glaring vulnerability. It is no lower than 20th out of 48 states in any of the major categories.

The state has also earned recognition for planning ahead rather than reacting after the fact. Michigan also received a respectable B grade in preparedness from Climate Central, which noted actions the state has taken to adapt and improve resilience to climate change-related drought. Access to freshwater, moderate summers, and low hurricane exposure round out the appeal.

Upper Midwest: cold winters, fewer disasters

Minnesota consistently ranks among the more livable long-term options, largely because it dodges the two biggest threats plaguing coastal America. The North Star state comes in fifth thanks to its relatively low flood risk. Flooding, in particular, barely registers as a concern there. Only around 3% of the Minnesota population lives in 100- and 500-year floodplains, according to a 2017 report by the NYU Furman Center.

Looking ahead, the trajectory stays favorable rather than worsening sharply. In the next 30 years, the state is only expected to see a 1.4% increase in the number of properties with flood risk, according to Flood Factor. Brutal winters remain the tradeoff, but from a pure climate-risk standpoint, that’s a far easier problem to plan around than rising seas or megafires.

Mountain West and Rockies: heat spared, but not untouched

Colorado and similar high-elevation states benefit from altitude in ways that lower-lying regions simply can’t replicate. Colorado is only expected to see one day with the heat index above 100 degrees by 2050 (in a low emissions scenario) and its population is the third-least vulnerable to extreme heat of any U.S. state. That’s a meaningful advantage as summers elsewhere grow more punishing.

Wildfire remains the region’s persistent worry, and it’s not going away. Drought cycles across the interior West have grown longer and more frequent, straining water supplies that mountain communities and downstream farms both depend on. Even so, compared to coastal flooding or hurricane exposure, the risks here tend to be more localized and, in many cases, more predictable.

Desert Southwest: livable today, riskier by mid-century

Arizona, New Mexico, and West Texas occupy an odd middle ground. Wildfire risk is lower than in California, but heat more than makes up for it. The desert Southwest is less at risk from wildfires than California, but faces a greater threat from extreme heat, especially in southernmost counties.

The projections for coming decades are stark. Under 2°C of warming, likely by mid-century, several counties in this region may experience more than 120 days per year with temperatures over 95°F. Combine that with reliance on air conditioning and strained power grids, and the region’s long-term outlook grows shakier the further out you look, even though it remains functional today.

California: wildfire capital of the country

California’s climate story is dominated by fire, and the recent numbers back that up in dramatic fashion. Out of all US states, California has experienced the most wildfires and the most acres burned since 1980, and has by far the most houses and properties exposed to risk. The 2025 fire season made the point painfully clear. The 2025 L.A. wildfires caused up to $53.8 billion in property damage, underscoring that wildfire risk isn’t limited to rural or forested regions.

Insurance markets are reacting accordingly. These risks have driven many insurers to scale back or exit the California market entirely, making homeowners insurance harder to find and more expensive. Some coastal pockets offer partial relief, but as one analysis put it, even there you’ll likely find yourself inundated with wildfire smoke, which comes with a host of severe health effects.

Southern Great Plains: heat, drought, and volatile weather

Texas and Oklahoma sit at the crossroads of nearly every major climate hazard the country faces, which is part of what makes the region so difficult to plan for. Oklahoma is in the 84th percentile for fire risk in the nation, and in 2025, over 170,000 acres were lost to wildfires in a historic storm event. Arkansas isn’t spared either. Arkansas has a lower fire risk, but it averages around 1,000 wildfires per year, and lost over 20,000 acres to forest fires in 2025.

Heat compounds everything else here. Both states are facing a high risk from heat waves, which can make for a lethal combination when paired with the high humidity prevalent in the region. The sheer variety of threats, rather than any single dominant one, is what makes this region so hard for planners and homeowners alike to prepare for.

Mid-Atlantic coast: sea level rise creeping inland

Maryland and Delaware may not grab headlines the way Florida does, but their exposure is quietly severe. Nearly all but a relative handful of Maryland’s 2.2 million properties are vulnerable to major damage over the next 30 years, according to First Street, and nearly 11% of properties face damage from flooding. State officials have taken notice. In 2021, Maryland adopted a ten-year Climate Adaptation Resilience Framework aimed at making the state’s infrastructure more sustainable by 2030.

Delaware’s small size hasn’t spared it either. A report prepared for the state in 2022 predicted that climate change will cost the state well over $1 billion a year by 2080. As in Maryland, sea level rise sits at the center of the concern, slowly reshaping coastlines that communities have relied on for generations.

Gulf Coast South: the region that came in last

When climatologists tally up every major hazard, heat, humidity, hurricanes, flooding, and weak infrastructure, the Gulf Coast South consistently lands at the bottom. The Gulf Coast, spanning Texas, Louisiana, Florida, and the southernmost counties of Mississippi and Alabama, is extremely vulnerable to climate change. The reasons go beyond weather alone. The Southeast consistently ranks lowest in the nation for climate resilience, and from health, unemployment, and inequality to political resistance, southern states are both underprepared and under-resourced in their response to climate-fueled disasters.

Florida anchors the bottom of nearly every list. No state in the U.S. has a more dire climate change outlook than Florida, a state that ranks as a top-five worst state for both extreme heat and flooding. Global risk analysts agree on the severity. After China, the US has the most regions at risk of climate change, with Florida ranking tenth on the list globally. Mississippi fares little better on the vulnerability scale. According to the U.S. Climate Vulnerability Index, it holds the worst overall score in the nation, driven by factors like flooding, heat stress, poor infrastructure, and low socioeconomic resilience. Add rising insurance costs, shrinking coverage options, and repeated hurricane rebuilding cycles, and it’s easy to see why this stretch of coastline ranks dead last for long-term livability.