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It is rather continental, but still less so than similar latitudes in east Asia. So no, it's quite nice even in most of the winter. In the Deep south. The bit of cold weather can be nice. I really enjoy some cold, and wish we had a bit more
Agreed that I would really wish for more cold if I lived in the South. Glad you recognize that it is quite short lived, way too many clown climatologists on this weather forum seriously exaggerate it and want to call the South some kind of continental climate.
Coming from a quintessential Dfa/Dfb humid continental climate it's even better to see someone actually recognizing the not much cold. For example, Dallas Love Field is the quintessential subtropical climate and its normal coldest day of the winter is 1C/-7C, which is actually warmer than my AVERAGE in January of -1.1C/-8.5C.
Definitely would have me wishing for more cold.
I think they're coming from a Northern Wisconsin standpoint. That's where it starts getting noticeable compared to the Southern Great Lakes, never mind places like South Carolina and Texas.
I think they're coming from a Northern Wisconsin standpoint. That's where it starts getting noticeable compared to the Southern Great Lakes, never mind places like South Carolina and Texas.
I just don't see how anyone could claim Chicago is not a four season climate when it's at least very close to the quintessential one. Especially making the argument that it doesn't have enough winter cold to be considered four season. It has three months below freezing, exactly the number it should for a balanced four season climate. The averages aren't crazy cold in the winter, but it does get about a meter of snow per year and not uncommon to get a cold snap down to -20c in the winter. If your winters are like 3, -7 with a healthy amount of snow, it's going to be snowy and slushy for a good part of the year. Chicago's summers get pretty hot too so it balances out
Not to mention there are four season climates way south of there like Flagstaff and Santa Fe at 35N. Just didn't seem fair to bring those up because of the elevation
I just don't see how anyone could claim Chicago is not a four season climate when it's at least very close to the quintessential one. Especially making the argument that it doesn't have enough winter cold to be considered four season. It has three months below freezing, exactly the number it should for a balanced four season climate. The averages aren't crazy cold in the winter, but it does get about a meter of snow per year and not uncommon to get a cold snap down to -20c in the winter. If your winters are like 3, -7 with a healthy amount of snow, it's going to be snowy and slushy for a good part of the year. Chicago's summers get pretty hot too so it balances out
Not to mention there are four season climates way south of there like Flagstaff and Santa Fe at 35N. Just didn't seem fair to bring those up because of the elevation
I agree completely it's a 4 season climate. This is the what GraniteStater said, and what I was talking about in reference to.
Quote:
with more substantial changes in daylight between summer and winter.
I'm almost 44N and my winter-summer daylight changes are not especially extreme as they go, despite summer being long days and winter being short. 43N and south of course will be even less so.
I just don't see how anyone could claim Chicago is not a four season climate when it's at least very close to the quintessential one. Especially making the argument that it doesn't have enough winter cold to be considered four season. It has three months below freezing, exactly the number it should for a balanced four season climate. The averages aren't crazy cold in the winter, but it does get about a meter of snow per year and not uncommon to get a cold snap down to -20c in the winter. If your winters are like 3, -7 with a healthy amount of snow, it's going to be snowy and slushy for a good part of the year. Chicago's summers get pretty hot too so it balances out
Not to mention there are four season climates way south of there like Flagstaff and Santa Fe at 35N. Just didn't seem fair to bring those up because of the elevation
Chicago does still get a substantial amount of above freezing days during its winters, especially on a mild winter like this one. And snowpack is often not that consistent - again, like this year.
Here in Toronto is similar. Lots of mild weather and in my suburban neighbourhood, 10x more rain than snow so far this winter.
Last winter was cold from mid-Jan to mid-Feb but December and early Jan had no snow on the ground.
The previous winter (2020-2021) also had little snow and abundant mild temperatures in Toronto.
Areas around 40-45N in the Great Lakes are below freezing during winter more often than not, and I would say exhibit broadly continental characteristics. However, there's still a distinct lack of consistency in wintery conditions, compared to areas around 45-50N like Sudbury and Duluth, where the conditions are much more consistently wintery from December to February. Montreal and Sault Ste Marie are much more consistently cold than Toronto but can still get brief periods of mild weather.
So yes, there is a lack of consistency in "stereotypical" winter weather, ie temperatures staying below freezing and snow cover.
Chicago certainly can get -20C cold snaps, but so can a lot of places, like Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee...
Coldest temperatures recorded so far this winter
DFW Int: -12C
Toronto Int: -15C
Montreal Int: -16C
Detroit Int: -18C
Nashville Int: -18C
Kansas City Int: -20C
St Louis Int: -21C
Chicago Int: -22C
All in all, everywhere from 32N to about 46N in the Mississippi+St Lawrence basins is going to have a mix of conditions in their winters and a season that's defined by variability, with everything from harsh freezes to mild weather being possible, although obviously the southernmost locations will skew much more towards mild (and occasionally very warm) and the northernmost locations will skew much more towards cold (and occasionally very cold).
Chicago does still get a substantial amount of above freezing days during its winters, especially on a mild winter like this one. And snowpack is often not that consistent - again, like this year.
Here in Toronto is similar. Lots of mild weather and in my suburban neighbourhood, 10x more rain than snow so far this winter.
Last winter was cold from mid-Jan to mid-Feb but December and early Jan had no snow on the ground.
The previous winter (2020-2021) also had little snow and abundant mild temperatures in Toronto.
Areas around 40-45N in the Great Lakes are below freezing during winter more often than not, and I would say exhibit broadly continental characteristics. However, there's still a distinct lack of consistency in wintery conditions, compared to areas around 45-50N like Sudbury and Duluth, where the conditions are much more consistently wintery from December to February. Montreal and Sault Ste Marie are much more consistently cold than Toronto but can still get brief periods of mild weather.
So yes, there is a lack of consistency in "stereotypical" winter weather, ie temperatures staying below freezing and snow cover.
Chicago certainly can get -20C cold snaps, but so can a lot of places, like Kansas, Missouri, Tennessee...
Coldest temperatures recorded so far this winter
DFW Int: -12C
Toronto Int: -15C
Montreal Int: -16C
Detroit Int: -18C
Nashville Int: -18C
Kansas City Int: -20C
St Louis Int: -21C
Chicago Int: -22C
All in all, everywhere from 32N to about 46N in the Mississippi+St Lawrence basins is going to have a mix of conditions in their winters and a season that's defined by variability, with everything from harsh freezes to mild weather being possible, although obviously the southernmost locations will skew much more towards mild (and occasionally very warm) and the northernmost locations will skew much more towards cold (and occasionally very cold).
I would love for our mild winter to be exchanged with the Southeast's freak Christmas cold. I'll put up with loads of bad weather here in exchange for good monitoring tbh.
can't object to the daylight hours part. But on the winters it is going to be hard to find a winter that never gets above freezing or never has rain unless you're going to accept someplace that's too cold to have four well equal seasons. You get into places with winter, mud, "summer", and early winter .
I think this very warm winter is biasing the view of Chicago as having warm winters.
Most Chicago winters are like:
Spoiler
just as likely to have a January like 2023 if not more likely to have one like 2014:
Spoiler
realistically if you ask 100 people about Chicago winters in general, how many are going to say they are TOO WARM to be a real winter?
I think they're coming from a Northern Wisconsin standpoint. That's where it starts getting noticeable compared to the Southern Great Lakes, never mind places like South Carolina and Texas.
I've lived in Wisconsin before, and it has a much more well defined four season climate compared to areas further south in the Ohio Valley that have very muted seasons most of the time.
The coldest temperature on my weather station for the December cold outbreak for the southern Indiana uplands was -23.5C. I was out of town at the time, but the weather station keeps history of the lowest temperature recorded. That was 8:30 AM on December 23rd.
can't object to the daylight hours part. But on the winters it is going to be hard to find a winter that never gets above freezing or never has rain unless you're going to accept someplace that's too cold to have four well equal seasons. You get into places with winter, mud, "summer", and early winter .
I think this very warm winter is biasing the view of Chicago as having warm winters.
Most Chicago winters are like:
Spoiler
just as likely to have a January like 2023 if not more likely to have one like 2014:
realistically if you ask 100 people about Chicago winters in general, how many are going to say they are TOO WARM to be a real winter?
I'd say Chicago's winters are closer to a real winter than not, but as someone who's lived in suburban Toronto, Thunder Bay, Waterloo ON, and visited Montreal dozens of times in winter (family lives there), the winters in Toronto feel quite mild.
2023 is somewhat anomalous here, but not that anomalous, and we'll still get cold I'm sure. But it's probably not gonna make up for the fact that the first half of winter had 10x more rain than snow, and snow cover for only like 5 days out of 45.
I've spent 4 winters in Thunder Bay, and they've all featured unrelenting winter conditions from December to March. Maybe you'd get a few days in the 30s, but not enough to melt the snowpack, and the overwhelming majority of days were still below freezing, often significantly so.
Montreal can get some mild weather and rain, but the winters are still predominantly cold and snowy. Sub-0F temperature typically happen quite often, and an average day will be considerably below freezing.
Waterloo can occasionally get sub-0F temperatures, but the cold is typically not as harsh, although still predominantly below freezing. Still, mild weather is not terribly unusual, but it still gets enough below freezing temperatures and snow that there's snowpack from most of the period of mid-December to early March.
Toronto however, frequently gets long stretches that are snow free, and mild rainy weather. Even though last winter got some backloaded winter conditions with cold and snow, December was mild, and there was little snow until the second half of January, and then by mid-February it was starting to get mild again.
2021, 2017, 2012, 2010 winters were mild and not very wintery imo.
By the way, the significance of winter rain is that it thaws the ground much more effectively than mild temperatures without rain.
Even Chicago's January 2014 had some mild temperatures with several days above freezing including some 5-8C days.
So although I would say Chicago and Toronto have, on average, more winter weather than not in their winter months, there's still enough of a lack of consistency that it's not as much of a classic winter as around Lake Superior, Quebec, Maine, New Brunswick, North Dakota, Winnipeg, etc.
Add a few more degrees to get the climate typical of the Ohio Valley, and the winters are now almost entirely on the "temperate" side of the scale. Still cold enough for consistent dormancy, making it a distinct season from spring, but mild enough that snow and freezing daytime temperatures are not present for most of their winters.
I don't think the snowpack is much different from Toronto and Waterloo. And I would say Toronto is comparable to Southern Maine in consistency.
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, way too many clown climatologists on this weather forum seriously exaggerate it and want to call the South some kind of continental climate.
