How Bad is Chicago's weather (Buffalo, Cleveland: 2014, condo, living in)

[American JP]

I am from Honolulu, HI. To be honest I hate the humid weather here and look forward to moving to the mainland. Chicago is one of my candidates but I have a friend who just moved here from there and he said the weather there is horrible. The thing is I like chilly weather like Seattle or San Francisco but not ice cold like Alaska. I hate humidity and when it comes to heat I think I would rather have dry heat over sticky humid heat. How bad are the winters in Chicago? I plan to live on a high rise condo which my friend said is better than living in the suburbs and experiencing heavy snow.

[jdiddy]

Originally Posted by american jp

i am from honolulu, hi. To be honest i hate the humid weather here and look forward to moving to the mainland. Chicago is one of my candidates but i have a friend who just moved here from there and he said the weather there is horrible. The thing is i like chilly weather like seattle or san francisco but not ice cold like alaska. I hate humidity and when it comes to heat i think i would rather have dry heat over sticky humid heat. How bad are the winters in chicago? I plan to live on a high rise condo which my friend said is better than living in the suburbs and experiencing heavy snow.

ice cold.

[rvernsey]

I moved here a year ago after 25 years in Florida. I have only experienced one winter; it was cold, gray and summer was about 6 weeks long. I hear that it was an unusually ****ty summer though. That being said it didn't really bother me, I just feel like I wasted a lot of money living a block from the lake thinking that summer would be months long and I would enjoy it more. Moved a bit west to a place that I like better and is about half price.

[pidgeon92]

The weather is the one thing I really dislike about Chicago. Not a lot of sun, not a great number of nice weather days in each season. Spring is pretty much nonexistent.

The past few winters have been "reasonably" mild, with the temp staying over 0F most of the time. Last year it didn't get really cold until January, but we've had temperatures in the 'teens already the last couple of weeks. I think we're in for a really cold Jan-Feb in 2014.

The summers are either abysmally hot and humid, or cool and dark. This past summer was one of the cool and dark ones. Not a lot of sun. Not enough heat to get the vegetable garden producing much of anything.

[marothisu]

Originally Posted by American JP

I am from Honolulu, HI. To be honest I hate the humid weather here and look forward to moving to the mainland. Chicago is one of my candidates but I have a friend who just moved here from there and he said the weather there is horrible. The thing is I like chilly weather like Seattle or San Francisco but not ice cold like Alaska. I hate humidity and when it comes to heat I think I would rather have dry heat over sticky humid heat. How bad are the winters in Chicago? I plan to live on a high rise condo which my friend said is better than living in the suburbs and experiencing heavy snow.

Chicago is neither the Pacific Northwest nor Alaska. It's in the middle. It can get cold in the winter, but the average high is in the lower to mid 30s. For you that's pretty cold. In the summer it can be humid and in the low to mid 80s on average, but temperatures into the 90s is not abnormal. I have been to Honolulu once and found the weather there more humid.

Winters in Chicago...IMO they don't snow as much as you'd think in the city especially near the lake. The suburbs get more, but there are other cities in the US (i.e. Minneapolis, Buffalo, Cleveland, Boston) that get more snow than Chicago. For what it's worth, I dated a Hawaiian girl while I lived in Iowa, and this particular area of Iowa is slightly colder than Chicago. She didn't have a car, relied on public transit/walking there and she made out fine. I was joking with her recently to move to Chicago and she went off about how the winters were so bad. I told her that Iowa was slightly worse and showed her data to support that and her reaction was "oh, why do people make it seem so bad then? Iowa was cold but fine."

Everyone is different, but yeah. The best thing you can do in the winter for public transit is to get a transit tracker app for your phone. That way you'll know when the bus or train is coming (the Red Line and Blue Line though downtown is a subway) and you can minimize your wait time outside. Learn the routes and whatever. You can get used to it though - in the end there's people from all over the world here and from places hotter than anything Hawaii has on average and they survive.

[grapico]

I am originally from Florida, warm like Hawaii, so Chicago is definitely freezing to me. Some winters are better than others. The last two haven't been bad although it stays cold for awhile. 2006-2008 and 2010 were miserable winters. This past winter wasn't brutally cold, but lasted long, snowing until the end of April. The worst parts are probably the length, low amount of sunshine and being cooped up indoors when it is freezing. I am not only just a "city nut" but also am a runner/biker so the weather in Chicago makes this fairly impossible for a long period, the races are generally from april-nov but even the april/nov races can be pretty cold. The Turkey Trot for instance would have been miserable even though I didn't run it, starting temp for the race was 22 degrees w/o windchill. I've ran the shamrock shuffle then thought I was going to hack up a lung the next few days as the windchill was really bad and killed my lungs. I try not to run in anything under 40. My gf is from NYC and complains about the winters here. Most people in Chicago are from the Midwest and often colder places like Minnesota,Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa, so they are probably used to it. I never saw snow more than flurries until I was 24, so ... yes different strokes from different folks. Summer and Fall in Chicago are 90% of the time great. Prolonged falls come more often than not. There are sometimes when spring is basically just a continuation of winter though. The trees are often dead for quite a long time also, which if you aren't used to can be odd coming from Hawaii probably. The snow of the winter isn't really an issue, the snow often makes it more fun and prettier. It's the those really cold days and late springs that are the issue.

Originally Posted by rvernsey

I moved here a year ago after 25 years in Florida. I have only experienced one winter; it was cold, gray and summer was about 6 weeks long. I hear that it was an unusually ****ty summer though. That being said it didn't really bother me, I just feel like I wasted a lot of money living a block from the lake thinking that summer would be months long and I would enjoy it more. Moved a bit west to a place that I like better and is about half price.

This summer seemed pretty normal to me. Summer in Chicago is like March/April in Florida (high 70s/low 80s) occasional 90s... just FYI. Winter in Florida is like May or September in Chicago. Actually if you are from say, Central Florida like Orlando, January is on average warmer than May in Chicago... This last winter wasn't that bad... if you thought it was well...not sure what to tell you.

[chirack]

Summer can be months long but not always weather to jump into the lake. Nice warm weather beach weather is usually June, July, Aug, and some of Sep. If you are lucky the warm weather creeps into October(but not always). The lake takes a while to warm up and may still be cold in June but the beach can be fine.

Summer can be hot and humid but Chicago's does not get quite the long heat waves of the southern states. It will only rise to 100F every few years for a few days. High 90ies pretty much every year.

Spring can be cold, short or non-exsistant. It can still snow a bit till April. April is totaly unpredictable, could be people in shorts, could be sweeping a bit of snow early on. May is usually nice during the day but can be a tad nippy at night.

Fall can be quick end of September(sometimes) October and November and by November it is possible to flurry.

If you are prepared to be in an Heavy winter coat from like the end of December to the begining of March then you won't be driven nuts by the weather.

[K 22]

Just from my personal experience, the winters here can be BRUTAL but nothing too terrible. It's the high winds that can be annoying (Chicago's flatness helps the wind move, IMO). All of the other seasons don't seem all that different than the weather in the Northeastern Cities.

[MichiVegas]

Winters can be quite cold and snowy/icy, but what gets me more is the lack of sunlight.

The Great Lakes region really lacks sunshine most of the year. Some people don't care but it can bother others. You just bundle up to deal with the cold, but lack of light is a tough one.

And it's worse because Chicago is in the far eastern portion of Central Time, so the sun sets an hour earlier than if it were in Eastern Time (like right across the lake). So when it's dark at 5:30 in Michigan in the middle of winter, it's already dark in Illinois at 4:30.

[Larry Siegel]

Originally Posted by MichiVegas

Winters can be quite cold and snowy/icy, but what gets me more is the lack of sunlight.

The Great Lakes region really lacks sunshine most of the year. Some people don't care but it can bother others. You just bundle up to deal with the cold, but lack of light is a tough one.

And it's worse because Chicago is in the far eastern portion of Central Time, so the sun sets an hour earlier than if it were in Eastern Time (like right across the lake). So when it's dark at 5:30 in Michigan in the middle of winter, it's already dark in Illinois at 4:30.

We get the same amount of sunlight as everyone else at 41 degrees north latitude. It sucks, but it's not unique to Chicago.

To answer the OP's question, coming from Honolulu you can expect to dislike November through April. We just had the coldest November in decades; it's not usually this bad. However, you have more of an adjustment than someone coming from, say, New York. The city is great and makes Honolulu look like a boring suburb, but there is that weather thing.