So how cold is it really..

<p>Bring $100 with you. When winter comes around, spend it on what you think you need. Some people will go in long sleeve t-shirts, others will dress like they're on an arctic expedition. There's no way to tell where you lie until you experience it. Considering you're a New Yorker, it won't seem much different.</p>

<p>I have a pretty good tolerance for the cold and the wind. My rules of thumb:</p>

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Some people will go in long sleeve t-shirts, others will dress like they're on an arctic expedition.

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<p>The latter will probably be me ;)</p>

<p>i live in chicago, and honestly the thing about chicago weather is that it isn't that bad but it's the wind chill that really gets to you. my sister doesn't think it's all that bad but i'm still freezing half the time. i would advise a poofy winter jacket [preferably one with down] however bc a sweatshirt or a peacoat won't help much at all when the wind is blowing at you. ooo and a scarf and hat and gloves [your fingers will begin to get cold very quickly w/out them].
hoodies or sweaters underneath your coat is also advised. don't worry about looking ridiculous bc everyone else is too cold to care about how you look.
oh and to dvm about walking outside for 5 mins in january and being frozen? that's not usually all that common, the weather had actually been really nice just a couple weeks before. i really remember that because i had just come back from california... and then back home to like 20 below zero. it was terrible.
but yeah... so just make sure to really layer it up as i think other people have been saying. though in the end it really does depend on the person bc some people are really tough against the cold, i'm just not one of them and not ashamed to admit it!</p>

<p>I talked to a friend at NU and he says that fall and spring are great, but winters are absolutely brutal! I live in Michigan where we're used to freezing cold, but from reading this posts, it seems as though the wind in Evanston is the killer.
I hope fall and spring will make up for winter!</p>

<p>My friend from Wisconsin rarely wears a coat except at night (when it obviously gets a whole lot colder, and the wind tends to pick up then too.)</p>

<p>I live 5 minutes from NU and have to disagree with liz1628. The worst part about weather along the lake is the spring. Winter is cold but tolerable if you dress warmly and the moderating effect of the lake keeps it slightly warmer than farther inland. However, if I had truly understood lake effect cooling in the spring I would never have moved close to the lake front. In March, April, May there can be, and usually is, a 15 degree or more difference between the lake front and a farther in suburb. And the difference between 45 with a cold breeze off the lake and 60 inland when you are really ready for winter to be over is quite depressing. But falls are fabulous and overall, unless you really want a warm climate, NU isn't much different than east coast. Oldest D went to college in New Jersey and next D is at school in Massachusetts and they think the weather is very comparable.</p>

<p>When I visited NU, I stayed with some people from NJ and NY and they all said it is a good idea to buy a down parka for the winter/spring months. I visited in late spring and we had two very nice days and one day that was cold and very,very windy.
Plus, the fact that NU has a Frostbite Express sort of shows you how cold it is there. (It only runs when the temp is in the single digits or the wind chill factor is below zero.)</p>

<p>Yeah, but I visited when it was about 40 degrees, and I froze that quickly wearing a jacket I borrowed from my uncle when he went on an Antarctica expedition. (The company that does these expeditions with tourists gives them out to use.) I have no clue how CerebralAssassin can survive that temperature wearing only jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. My parents force me to wear that when it's 65, saying I'll get a cold. Liars.</p>

<p>^^^ haha, ft. lauderdale</p>

<p>Hahaha I'm in [Northern] CA and 40 degrees isn't THAT bad. It's about that cold in the morning sometimes, so I only need a sweatshirt and not a huge jacket to survive xD</p>

<p>What the hell would you wear to sleep?</p>

<p>Well, High for saturday is, I believe 5 degrees, and that doesn't include wind chill. Low with wind chill will be probably around twenty below. Gotta love Evanston, where we have strings of triple digit days in the summer and then this in the winter.</p>

<p>^^ are you serious? damn that's going to suck. it wasn't very cold today</p>

<p>Windchill, windchill.
that's all I have to say.
The temp may be comparable to New York, but Chicago feels about 10 times worse because of the windchill.</p>

<p>We are from California, and DD bought the following-mostly from Northface:
1 down short ski jacket, 1 down long/mid-calf winter coat, 1 short wool coat-Old navy or Gap can't remember, 1 zip-up w/long sleeves wind guard, 1 pair of ski gloves, 1 pair of ski mittens, scarf, wool hat, ski socks, rubber rain boots, and waterproof afterski boots. She does not like turtlenecks-rather long sleeve t'shirts. She received several scarves from friends-some home-made. She thought she was experiencing spring-like weather when she came home for Christmas-we were feeling the cold! she explained layers were important-and that her room was perfectly heated. I hope this helps-APOL-a mom.</p>

<p>Holy Crap Its Freaaaaaaaaking Cold</p>

<p>when i got back to my dorm last night at like 3am i checked weather.com and it said it was -4 degrees. that is not windchill, it was actually -4. and it's not much better today....</p>

<p>it was negative three degrees last night.</p>

<p>Thanks APOL! My D got in ED and we are from the Mid-Atlantic region. She does not like coats but we just got her a Northface knee length coat that seems VERY warm. She has a short down coat and a short pea coat. That sounds like what everyone is wearing. She has UGGs and noticed the girls were wearing the plastic rain boots when she visited last spring.</p>