I was born and raised just north of NYC and spent 10 years in the freezer known as Buffalo. The next 20 years I lived in the deep south. We had several large greenhouses which had to be heated in winter. We visited NY for a Thanksgiving Holiday. As my wife (who I met in the freezer) and I took a walk in the subfreezing air we were depressed at the quality of light at just after noon and the sun just topping the trees before going back down. We weren't surprised then when we were introduced to neighbors who were installing HID lights in their greenhouse. They explained how it increased the quality of light while decreasing the daytime heating cost. They also melted any snow load from the previous day/night. We were raised in the north but acclimated to the south and were very thankful for the things we didn't have to deal with. Yes, we have ice storms, tornados, severe thunderstorms that rank right up there with any hurricane in terms of winds, rains, and lightning, real hurricanes and temporary winter temperature drops but we have our light. Our sunlight can warm our greenhouse (down to 1 now) on just about any day of the year. Those neighbors with their HID lights had a true "southern room".
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