<p>I much prefer a Chicago Winter to a Midwestern Summer - 90-100F with constant humidity - I despise heat.</p>
<p>On the contrary neverborn, I love the 90 degree Chicago summer heat in the summer and hate the coldness during the winter.</p>
<p>I can always put more clothes/jackets/whatever on when walking to class. There's only so much you can take off - the stifling heat and humidity kill me.</p>
<p>I dont know about Chicago weather... i mean i've lived here all my life and I still don't get it. There really isn't anyplace like it my opinon, 90-100 degree summers are the norm, while winters are really cold, and really snowy. </p>
<p>Honestly... we have a mix off Minnestoa winters and Las Vegas Summers (except with humidity). ***?!</p>
<p>Central Illinois is like that too, chi787.</p>
<p>-40? not so often
-20 + windchill making it FEEL like -40?
weeks and weeks every winter.</p>
<p>I don't think so...</p>
<p>I do think so...Not only is it that cold there, but upstate NY is one of the snowiest places around. Montague '96, 77 inches in 24 hours (US record). Hooker, NY 499 inches in one year. Montague '01, 127 inches from a single storm. Hard to rival!</p>
<p>I call BS on the temperature.</p>
<p>Go to this</a> website, find your home town and check the climate statistics. If you can, find an American equivalent to this</a> page, which does have numbers for days where windchill dips below -40. As you can see, this happens slightly less than once a year on average in Montreal (just as said before). You can also compare to the numbers from my</a> hometown, where the average number of days with windchill of -40 or below is 6.5. So unless your hometown is at a particularly high altitude, I don't think the claim of weeks and weeks of -40 windchill is remotely close to being true.</p>
<p>As for snow, the optimal temperature for quantity is not below -10C...</p>
<p>okay, weeks and weeks of 40 below is an overstatement, but not much of one. last winter they did cancel school after 7 days of temperatures 40 below with windchill - it was beyond bitterly cold! luckily this coincided with winter break, so we only missed that one day - the bad weather stuck around for quite a while. regardless, we DO have weeks upon weeks of temperatures well below zero not counting the windchill. yes, i live near mountains.</p>
<p>oh, and montreal is a horrible comparison. you can't base opinions on upstate ny with montreal info. the adirondack mountains create quite a difference in the weather between here and montreal.</p>
<p>That's why I compared offered the comparison to Bagotville instead (higher altitude, not urban, still not as mountainous as the Adirondacks, but the lattitude should compensate). I know mountains have microclimates... Looking through <a href="http://www.worldclimate.com%5B/url%5D">www.worldclimate.com</a>, you only have averages, and no standard deviations, so it's harder to get a grasp on extreme weather.</p>
<p>Anyway, my acquaintances from Fermont</a>would laugh when they heard we closed school at sustained -40 with windchill (still, only got 1-2 storm days a year, though 1 was usually icing rain in novermber, the calendar allowed for 3, so back in 1994, we just had to suck it up...). </p>
<p>Still, wasn't this discussion about Boston in the first place. And here's a quote from another acquaintance of mine, who went to MIT: "In Boston, it only snows in Alley McBeal".</p>