Fortunately, they have county-by-county data (and hourly data if you so desire) that spells out the design criteria for heating systems; https://www.energystar

Fortunately, they have county-by-county data (and hourly data if you so desire) that spells out the design criteria for heating systems; https://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/bldrs_lenders_raters/downloads/County%20Level%20Design%20Temperature%20Reference%20Guide%20-%202015-06-24.pdf https://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/bldrs_lenders_raters/... Though heat pumps are unique in that they produce less heat as the colder it gets - A few hours of -15º every few years shouldn't be the primary consideration in spec'ing a system that still produces 75% of its heat in that worse case. I live in that blue area and ran through all of the math and considerations recently - I pulled the hourly temperature data for 6 years. Of the 94,000 data points in that period, a total of 26 hours were below -5º: https://imgur.com/a/P7A3kan https://imgur.com/a/P7A3kan