Winters In Chicago (Naperville, Lisle, Lincoln: apartment, condo, neighborhood)

[nubianprincess]

Hello Chicago, I'm thinking of moving to the area next spring sometime and I have a few questions to ask:

1. What months do you get the most snow?

2. What months does the cold weather start to becom unbearable?

3. I'm going to attend College of Dupage, what are the good and bad areas to live in the west side of Chicago.

4. Are there subways that go from the suburban areas to downtown? If so which suburban areas do they go to?

Any helpful information will be appreciated.Thanks!

[tyronen]

1. Nov-Feb.
2. Ditto.
3. That depends on your tastes. All of DuPage county is very suburban (strip malls, spread-out blah) and requires a car to manage. Naperville often shows up in CNN "best places to live" surveys, but I found it too suburban.

DuPage college is not really west Chicago, it is not even in the same county as Chicago.

4. The CTA subways stop inside or just outside the city limits. For DuPage area, you have to take the Metra. Maps and schedules at www.metrarail.com.

[acdevane]

The snow is sparodic November & December then it usually nails us Jan - March, and sometimes as long as April. College of DuPage is out in suburbia. Most of the surrounding areas are fine to live in. You'll hear a lot about Naperville, but if you're on a student's budget, you might consider other communities like Lisle. The Four Lakes community is a robust community filled with pools, trails, volleyball, fishig, skiing in the winter even though they are bunny hills, it's own pub and more. There are other more affordable housing. You should be prepared to spend around 800/mo for a one bedroom. There are other areas, but they are run about the same. Your best bet would be to find a two bedroom for around 1200/mo and split it with someone.

Keep my info, and when you get closer to moving, give me a call, I'll help you out.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by acdevane

The snow is sparodic November & December then it usually nails us Jan - March, and sometimes as long as April. College of DuPage is out in suburbia. Most of the surrounding areas are fine to live in. You'll hear a lot about Naperville, but if you're on a student's budget, you might consider other communities like Lisle. The Four Lakes community is a robust community filled with pools, trails, volleyball, fishig, skiing in the winter even though they are bunny hills, it's own pub and more. There are other more affordable housing. You should be prepared to spend around 800/mo for a one bedroom. There are other areas, but they are run about the same. Your best bet would be to find a two bedroom for around 1200/mo and split it with someone.

Keep my info, and when you get closer to moving, give me a call, I'll help you out.

March and April snowshowers last a few minutes and melt in a few minutes (hours at latest).

[Jumpman023]

Hi,

Don't ask why, but ever since I was a kid, I've always been in love with Chicago, and I've really wanted to live there since. The problem is, I really hate cold weather, with a passion, but really, just how bad are the Chicago winters? I come from the Northwest which can get somewhat cold, but nothing compared to Chicago, so for someone like me, how unbearable are the winters? Does it take a really long time to adjust or what? This is my only beef with the city (although I hear it's really nice during the spring/summer), so is the winter bad enough to be a dealbreaker? How do they compare to NYC (I'm deciding between the two, but Chicago has lower COL, which is important because I'll only be an entry level accountant making somewhere between 50-55k my first year).

Also, just out of curiosity, how good is the public transportation there? For my first few years, if I end up living there, I'd like to live in the city so that I (hopefully) don't need a car. Although I should have a decent career in a few years, entry level accountants don't exactly make bank, so I want to cut my costs as much as possible. Plus, how bad is Chicago for entry-level workers in terms of cost of living?

sorry, that's a lot of questions, but I'd really aprpeciate your help/

thanks

[Avengerfire]

There are only like 576 threads on all of these things already. I know you are pretty new, but for the love of god please search the forum!

[pw72]

Yes, search the forum, but I understand you want a quick answer. Chicago winters are quite variable. One winter can be mild with just a few little snowstorms and no real cold outbreaks. The next one can be awful with weeks of sub-freezing temps and plenty of snow. You just can't predict it. The other thing about Chi winters is they can start warm and end up cold, or vice-versa.

50-55K is enough to live on if you don't mind a studio or 1-BR apartment. Just don't expect to live in a downtown/northside apt or condo in a desirable neighborhood. Suburbs are probably more realistic. But you can commute in on an excellent transit system.

Good luck, Chicago is a great city, and northwesterners will find the city and vibe to be quite a natural fit.

[j33]

Originally Posted by pw72

50-55K is enough to live on if you don't mind a studio or 1-BR apartment. Just don't expect to live in a downtown/northside apt or condo in a desirable neighborhood. Suburbs are probably more realistic. But you can commute in on an excellent transit system.

I've lived on the north and northwest side for years making much less than that. Unless you are supporting a family, or have significant personal debt, or have unusually expensive hobbies. You'll be more than comfortable on that salary. Lose the car when you first move here, and you'll be able to afford a 2 bedroom apartment on the northside in a smaller building (e.g. no doorman or pool), just perhaps not in Lincoln Park.

[NYrules]

They're very similar to Jersey's weather, not Manhattan or the island as the ocean keeps those areas warmer in the winter. Our weather here is very similar to lets say... Ridgewood, NJ maybe? That make sense to you? Or perhaps areas north and more inland than New Rochelle, NY. Springs here are what sucks the most, not winter surprisingly. Just when you hope and pray for that warm weather to start, BAM winds swing around to the NE and now you get icy damp winds off the lake for the next two months with a few teaser days thrown in here and there where winds won't blow off the lake and you can see what the weather is like for everyone else living about 100 miles from the shore. Then back to crap the next day or reality for Chicago more like it and if it's a year like this one, you get that going on all the way until June. It's not the cold so much that is what sucks here the most, it's the nearly constant doom and gloom looking weather. Very VERY VERY cloudy and don't listen to statistics. If it is sunny for 5 minutes here they count that as a sunny day and I hear that day in and day out on the weather and it drives me nuts here, it's like folks it was cloudy for 99% of the day with a peak a boo of the sun so it wasn't FRICKING SUNNY! Most days here either are cloudy in the morning and sunny in the afternoon or vice versa and when it is sunny it usually still looks cloudy as we usually get what I refer to as white sky. It will be totally cloud free, but due to the moisture in the air, the sky appears white so it still looks cloudy. UGGHH!!! In the dead of winter when it is cloud free is when you get your prettiest skies here. Very crisp blue skies which is actually winter's saving grace here. After a fresh snowfall when the storm clears out and the skies clear, it will usually get very cold, but the air is clean and crisp and the snow glistens which is nice so that said, winter while bitterly cold sometimes is not what sucks here the most. Its our lack of spring just as cabin fever sets in and you have 2 more months (March 21-May 15th-ish) of gloomy weather to wait through as the lake waters have to warm back up.

[At1WithNature]

They're terrible! People may like snow, gray skies, going a week or two without seeing the sun but it's not for me. In fact, a recent weather.com pole revealed that 78.2% of people say their mood is positively influenced when the sun is shining. How could it not be? It's basic physics. There will most definently be a stretch of consecutive days with weather around -5 degrees with wind chills around -15 to -20. You will probably get roughly five to six snow storms per season that yield 4-6 inches. Sometimes you'll get that 8 or 10 incher. We haven't had a real storm in a looooong time. I'm talking about like 15 or 20 inches. The winters suck. Especially from january to march....the worst time to be in Chicago. And that's the time frame that I usually fly to vegas or key west or somewhere nice.