Winters In Chicago (Bloomington, Normal, Roselle: house, school, college)

[snoylekim]

They suck, really ...

[Irishtom29]

Winters can be harsh but they're OK unless you're a pansy. I kind'a enjoy winter. Sometimes.

[At1WithNature]

I think we all enjoy winter...up till February.

[At1WithNature]

Originally Posted by Gioobag

It's not bad through the Fall and Thanksgiving. Christmastime is great, but yeah January and February are seriously bleak.....and then it drags through April and often into May.

Like a turd leaving a skid mark.

[Nea1]

So being from the PNW, as I am ( I am in Denver right now) I will be used to the Gray. In Seattle, it can be gray 8 months a year, and in winter, cold, wet and Gray. Luckily I LOVE snow, which in the PNW is like concrete!!

[UnderTheLiveOaks]

Jumpman: There is no way we can answer your question, because it's totally subjective. You know that it's cold in Chicago, and is cold for a long time. If you truly hate cold weather, I cannot recommend Chicago to you. However, LOTS of us don't care for cold weather particularly, but still love Chicago because there's lots to do despite the sucky winters.

So, if you're looking for someone to say "It's not THAT cold...", you won't. (Well, maybe Steve-o will... ) You can look up the stats. It's plenty cold.

As for whether it's too much for YOU, that's something only you can decide. There's no way the rest of us know your tolerances or your demeanor or your ability to deal with crap weather.

[NYrules]

Originally Posted by At1WithNature

I think we all enjoy winter...up till February.

Agreed. I love winter until people's Christmas lights come down, or at least when they are supposed to come down or at least be turned off so certain lazy ***** indivduals don't make your neighborhood look like it's inhabited by a bunch of lazy frickin hillbillies who leave their lights up and on until Feb!

[Chicago60614]

It's all relative. It obviously gets COLD, but it's all a trade off.

I'm not a huge fan of the cold weather, but I AM a huge fan of Chicago. I might whine a little during Janary and February about the cold, then whine in April and May why it isn't warm yet....but in the end it's not a deal breaker.

If you really hate the cold, don't come to Chicago. The only thing I find more annoying than cold weather are people who sit 1,000 miles away and just complain CONSTANTLY about how cold it was in Chicago and blah blah blah, you'll never survive, it's so horrible. That's fine and dandy for you, but obviously others don't care as much - as 10 million people call the metro home.

[Steve-o]

Originally Posted by NYrules

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!

OP, youd be wise to ignore the above-quoted post as its chock full of exaggeration. He apparently doesnt pay close attention to the weather as I do. If you want a day-by-day thread about the weather events here in IL, visit the "official Illinois weather thread" here on these boards. YOu can view day-by-day (if applicable) posts about the weather and see what it was really like, not just by some weather channel numerical report. See from residents what they experienced. ORRRRR, you could simply click the links below to see the calender for this year's Chicago winter. Note the huge temp swings, and several consecutive days of clouds followed by several consecutive days of sun. THATS NORMAL. We average 54% sunshine year round, which if you do the math, is 1 out of 2 day is cloudy (or vice versa). Winter sunshine is the lowest in November at around 40%, then up to 50% for the following months. IN summer we usually average 65-70% sunshine.

Let the sunshine levels speak for themselves on Wunderground.com. This is the calender for January, the deepest, coldest part of winter. Does that look "gloom and doom" to you? I see plenty of sun. 14 days of almost pure sunshine which is... you guessed it, almost 50% sunshine rate which is.... you guessed it, NORMAL! I guess the cold hard facts and scientific sunshine level measurement is too much for some people to digest.
History : Weather Underground

Here is Feb's calender. I see 18 days of pure sun, including several days in the 50 degree temp range, even up to 55 at times. Which is, you guessed it, NORMAL. Once again teh sunshine % is right on par for being AVERAGE, and the temp swings from the teens to the 50s is also normal, it happens every year once or twice. Facts are facts, click below.
History : Weather Underground

You see, when there is a week of clouds or even 3 days of straight clouds, people in Chicago, especially in winter, are too quick to complain. As hardy as we are, we sure do have a bunch of manginas runnin around when winter hits. You could have 7 straight days of sun, followed by 2 days of clouds and people will whine about the clouds and how its "always" gloom and doom. I just dont get it.

Originally Posted by NYrules

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.

More crap from this post. Sure some days the horizon can appear white due to moisture content in the sky, but its not a daily thing, not even close. More often than not our skies are incredibly blue, during EVERY season. I dont have time to post all my pics, but Im an avid sky watcher and the post I just quoted is complete and utter bullcrap. Dont believe it for a second. Our summer skies are every bit as blue as the winter skies. I guess NYRules forgot to look out his window the last few days where he would have been treated to deep, stunning blue skies.

Taken last Saturday:


2 weeks ago:


May:


March:


You get the idea... Those are soooo "white" arent they?

[edsg25]

First of all, let me get this out of the way: I'm a wimp. And don't really like putting up with "too much".

Thus I can honestly say that I could survive a Chicago winter without a coat while standing on my head and chewing gum at the same time than I could survive and Florida or Arizona summer (even with the A/C blasting full time).

Let's set the record straight:

In Orlando, you can pretty well be assured 90°+ temperature daily from June until early September with humidity that could kill a fish. Wake up any morning, even at 5:00 am and you are likely to see steam rising from the ground. Arizona? Vegas? It's not the heat but the humidity. Right! At 115° and low humidity, I'd be cool as a cucumber. And it is unrelenting.

Chicago's winters? No norms, of course, but December is usually more than manageable. January is the time the cold snaps appear and sometimes they'll last about a week. And snow and cold are interspersed throughout. So what? On a good percentage of the days from December through March (including the depths of Jan and Feb), I can reasonably expect many days when I wake up, go outside, and deal neither with frigid temperatures, blowing winds, or snow all around me. And I'm never surprised when it happens.

For all the criticism of Chicago's winters, they have none, absolutely none, of the consistencies of a Miami or Phoenix summer. Nobody expects the weatherman to say, "it's another typical Chicago January day, -10° and 8 inches of snow on the way".

I know this is a generalization, but if you want relatively perfect weather or at least weather you can usually count on, head out to San Diego and arguably a few other California locations. Because, short of the Golden State, I can't think of any place that doesn't carry a whole bunch of weather negatives.

And ours comes with a joke: People acutally believe that Chicago winters and summers are brtual compared to the east coast environs of NYC, Philly, DC (at least nobody says Boston is better than us), totally disregarding that our inland city, subject to continental air masses, is still served by Lake Michigan which often, summer and winter, moderates things to a degree and often very nicely.

Chicago's weather makes a great story. But IMHO, that's all it is: a story, little based on the reality of city that just isn't the extreme climate that some would like to assign it.