[brytlea]

I visited Chicago once (on a stop over taking Amtrak from TX to NYC) and I have never been so cold in my life! I don’t think it’s a place I’d ever want to live, all things considered.

[Ditter]

I made the same train stop in Chicago except it was many years before Amtrak. I remember getting off the train to see a little of the city. When I rounded the first corner the wind blew me down flat (I weighed about 105 pounds). I got up and went back and sat on the train until it left.

[bcsco]

Two weekends ago, we had -36⁰ at our local airport. It was a record low for the state, but the weather service decided not to accept it. The recording device had been calibrated the day before, but the airport where the temps are taken is in a relatively lower area (by feet), so they felt the reading was misleading...

Well, that Friday night through early Sunday the hot water pipes leading to our two bathrooms and washer were frozen. This was a first in the 12 years we've lived in this house. The hot water to the kitchen sink, on a separate line, was all right, even though those pipes came up through another outside (West) wall. By Sunday afternoon, the temps had receded somewhat and the water was flowing again. The cold lines never did freeze. We now know to keep all lines dripping during extreme cold weather.

Yep. It can get cold here. But Chicago, being on Lake Michigan, can get some pretty cold winds during Winter, and lake affect snow. I'm 80 miles due West and we get our share of snow, but Chicago can get it from two sources; storms coming from the Southwest through Northwest, or lake affect. We're at least spared that second source. I guess that's something to be happy about...