Weather
While Chicago is widely known as the "Windy City", it is not the windiest city in the United States; Brockton, Massachusetts is. Chicago is not significantly windier than any other U.S. city. For example, the average annual wind speed of Chicago is: 10.3 mph (16.6 km/h); Boston: 12.4 mph (20.0 km/h); New York City, Central Park: 9.3 mph (15.0 km/h); and Los Angeles: 7.5 mph (12.1 km/h).
The following "windy city" explanation is from the Freeborn County Standard of Albert Lea, Minnesota, on November 20, 1892:
| “ | Chicago has been called the “windy” city, the term being used metaphorically to make out that Chicagoans were braggarts. The city is losing this reputation, for the reason that as people got used to it they found most of her claims to be backed up by facts. As usual, people go to extremes in this thing also, and one can tell a stranger almost anything about Chicago today and feel that he believes it implicitly.
But in another sense Chicago is actually earning the title of the “windy” city. It is one of the effects of the tall buildings which engineers and architects apparently did not foresee that the wind is sucked down into the streets. Walk past the Masonic Temple or the Auditorium any day even though it may be perfectly calm elsewhere, and you will meet with a lively breeze at the base of the building that will compel you to put your hand to your hat. |
” |
An explanation for Chicago being a naturally breezy area is that it is on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Chicago had long billed itself as an ideal summer resort because of its cool lake breeze. The Boston Globe of July 8, 1873, wrote that "a few years ago, Chicago advertised itself as a summer resort, on the strength of the lake breezes which so nicely tempered the mid-summer heats." The Chicago Tribune of June 14, 1876, discussed "Chicago as a Summer Resort" at length, proudly declaring that "the people of this city are enjoying cool breezes, refreshing rains, green fields, a grateful sun, and balmy air—winds from the north and east tempered by the coolness of the lake, and from the south and west, bearing to us frequent hints of the grass, flowers, wheat and corn of the prairies."
A typical summer weather forecast on TV or radio will predict a day's high temperature, with the appended comment: "cooler near the lake."
The February 4, 1873, Philadelphia Inquirer called Chicago "the great city of winds and fires."
Read more about this topic: Origin Of The Name "Windy City"
Famous quotes containing the word weather:
“The weather is like the government, always in the wrong.”
—Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927)
“This is the weather the shepherd shuns,
And so do I;
When beeches drip in browns and duns,
And thresh, and ply;”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)
“To recover a buried treasure without having it disappear miraculously in the process, one must be entitled to it, and also be willing—really willing deep in his heart—to share it with the poor and helpless. Buried money, especially silver, gives off a bright glow which comes right up through the earth and can be seen as a dim light on nights when the weather is misty or there is a gentle rain.”
—Administration in the State of Ariz, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)