Average wind chill in Chicago

[Chicago60614]

Originally Posted by space115

I'm new to the city.

Is this -20 to -25F wind chill the average temperature in Chicago during the winter?

Thanks.

It's definitely not AVERAGE. It happens maybe once or twice a year. People tend to remember extremes more than normal days, so in winter people will tend to think it's normally colder than it is on any given day, that it snows more than it does on any given day, etc.

For a wind chill of -20 or lower you need air temps of below 0-5 degrees and quite a bit of wind. On average you can get there at night a few times a year, but to have that during the day is fairly rare. On average the temp will drop to 0 degrees 7 times a year, mostly at night. Yesterday was the first time we've dropped below zero in two years now (it got to -1).