Unpopular opinion: Chicago winters aren't THAT bad (Lincoln, Wyoming: 2014, how much)

[GWoodle]

Originally Posted by NJ Brazen_3133

Is the dreaded "lake effect" worse than "ocean effect".

This would make a great study. Most of lake effect snow may be within 10-15 miles of the shoreline. Like Buffalo to see if this amounts to feet of snow in a small area. The snow area moves as wind shifts.

Maybe from the ocean it has the same effect over a larger area. Maybe snow moves inland more than just 20 miles. Maybe you also have wider band of snow.

To be sure in both cases depends if you get a foot of snow for an inch of water.

If you take "ocean effect" to be a storm getting moisture out of the Gulf then depositing it thousand miles away from the coast. From a lake you simply can't compare the size of the body of water to feed storm miles away inland. For the Great Lakes depends what direction winds travel.

For Chicago what this means is moisture off Lake Michigan coming some 500 miles until it reaches the shoreline. You get the same effect on Lake Erie some 200 miles from Toledo to Buffalo. May be good reason nobody lives north shore of UP Michigan. Snow totals off Lake Superior come in lots of feet.

[Robert9]

Originally Posted by MarianRavenwood

Funny how people come for a weekend and then declare it's not so bad. These people whose commute involves walking to an attached garage and getting into a car that's already warmed up for them. These people who go home to climates where trees bloom in March and leaves don't fall until November.

If it's not so bad, why don't you move here? Give up that attached garage and stand on an exposed elevated platform every morning in the dark, with temperatures close to or below freezing for five months of the year? Enjoy the 15 day stretches of 100% cloud cover like we just enjoyed?

I grew up in Montana. Winters there aren't terrible because a)the climate is arid. Chicago's climate is much more humid, which makes the hot feel hotter and the cold feel colder; and b)most people in Montana have attached and/or heated garages where they warm up their cars. Their commute doesn't involve walking 1/2 mile in the cold to an elevated train platform or an exposed bus stop; and c)most Montanans don't actually live in the most extreme weather areas. They live *near* extreme weather--ski slopes, snowmobiling, etc.--but they live in sheltered valleys. The snow may pile up but the wind passes over them. Even ranchers bring their herds in close during the winter to avoid the cold.

Ask any New Yorker and they will tell you too--winters are much shorter in New York than here. A pleasant three months and then the trees start to bud and the tulips come up long before Mother's day. They get lake effect snow, but they don't get the cold because the jet stream is typically headed northward, bringing warm air up; whereas in Chicago the jet stream brings cold air down from Canada.

Anyways, hope everyone enjoyed that one day of sunshine on Sunday. Get your snow shovels out!

My friends from florida come here for weeks in wintertime and walk with me for hours and are shocked by the people who cry about the winters. And they wanted to move here very badly. And even looked at places to live

But being here so many times they got turned off by the insane amount of crime and the politics and decided to just keep making long visits during the winter months instead

[Sunbiz1]

Originally Posted by NJ Brazen_3133

Is the dreaded "lake effect" worse than "ocean effect".

At times it can be equal to, but these events are rarer than the classic noreaster:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpFD_M6wPMY

[ToriaT]

Cold is relative. My sister in law who grew up in a tropical climate thinks anything fifty degrees is cold. To me its only really cold if its freezing or below. Below ten degrees, I'm not liking it also the wind chill can make things bad. The really cold weather in Chicago to me is only about two months worth.

[BOORGONG]

Originally Posted by jmgg

You've never been to the Dakota's huh?

Wednesday-Thursday forecast is -17 lows with wind chills -40's to the -50's.

If that isn't extreme cold, I'd love to here your definition of it.

We invented the term, Wind Chill Factor.

I bow to you, that is indeed chilly à la power of ten, even for a seasoned Canucky like me.

[jmgg]

Originally Posted by BOORGONG

I bow to you, that is indeed chilly à la power of ten, even for a seasoned Canucky like me.

As I post this at 9:00 am, the actual temperature in Sioux Falls is -18 and the winds are a sustained 24 mph. Wind chill factor of -49. The HIGH today is -8.

Tomorrow the winds are to pick UP to 40 mph. Wind chill factors potentially well into the -50's.

Get this. It's WORSE west and north of here.

Chicago may have the monicur of being the Windy City, but the reality is in the winter, other areas are much worse. Sioux Falls isn't much more than 75-100 miles north of Chicago.

[Avondalist]

Originally Posted by Sunbiz1

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClic...71580817831625
As for our Chicago winters, we haven't had a really bad one since; I think 2015.
The killer here is the lake in April and May, lake breeze season delays much of spring; then we just flip right to summer.

Chicago "springs" are more of a letdown than Chicago winters.

[BOORGONG]

Originally Posted by jmgg

As I post this at 9:00 am, the actual temperature in Sioux Falls is -18 and the winds are a sustained 24 mph. Wind chill factor of -49. The HIGH today is -8.

Tomorrow the winds are to pick UP to 40 mph. Wind chill factors potentially well into the -50's.

Get this. It's WORSE west and north of here.

Chicago may have the monicur of being the Windy City, but the reality is in the winter, other areas are much worse. Sioux Falls isn't much more than 75-100 miles north of Chicago.

I usually check my weather app for temps set to different places worldwide, and your neck of the woods is pretty impressive. I have in-laws living in a mining/forestry town in Northern Quebec: "Matagami*", and it is much warmer than where you live right now. I am looking forward to January to see if things even out. Lol

[BOORGONG]

Well, it’s minus 5F right now in Chicago, and 0F in Iqaluit, Nunavik territory of Northern Quebec. That’s minus 21 degrees Celsius to us, so you guys deserve your reputation as a witch’s mammary type place,

[IronWright]

Originally Posted by BOORGONG

Well, it’s minus 5F right now in Chicago, and 0F in Iqaluit, Nunavik territory of Northern Quebec. That’s minus 21 degrees Celsius to us, so you guys deserve your reputation as a witch’s mammary type place,

The reputation would lead you to believe that it stays that way for 5 months consecutively with two feet of snow on the ground. The reality is that over the last 5 years especially winters have been shockingly mild, the reputation is and was always entirely overblown.