I always say Chicago winter taught me what cold is. In a New York winter, you don’t go out if the mercury drops below 20. In Chicago, when it rises to 20, you open your coat to let in the heat wave. Once during my first full winter here, I expressed shock to my then-coworkers that the day’s high was going to be zero. Where were the headlines? Where were the emergency management office bulletins? Where were the warming buses?
They had no idea what I was talking about.
People from the coasts always think it snows a lot in Chicago, but that’s a red herring. Most of the snow socks the opposite shores of Lake Michigan. Not that we’d care. Obama’s amusement over D.C. closing its public schools for a dusting of snow in 2009 was well founded. Schools don’t close in Chicago for less than eight inches. And that’s only because we need the kids at home to guard the dibs chairs.
No, the thing is the cold for Chicagoans. It’s why we roll our eyes at newcomers who say they’re freezing but refuse to dress in layers. It’s why we yell at the screen on New Year’s Eve when we hear Ryan Seacrest in Times Square grouse about “frigid weather” in the 30s. It’s why our heads explode when we see news reports of Southern Californians donning hats, gloves, and earmuffs when the weather dips into the 50s.
In Chicago, cold happens. Not the persistent Arctic freeze of Minneapolis or Montreal, cities where fallen snow has to be removed by truck because otherwise it will remain in place until spring. But we do have our moments.
Take the next few days. (Please.) This morning, Friday, it’s one degree below zero. The mercury will rise nonstop for the next 33 hours until we reach above freezing on Saturday afternoon at 3. Then the temperature will drop nonstop for 43 hours until Monday morning at 10 when we’ll hit minus 11. Where we will stay for 48 alarming hours until we climb mercifully into the teens on Wednesday afternoon.
At which point we’ll all thank our personal Deities and head out to enjoy the heat.
The buried lede is that we really did just have one of our rare, big snowstorms. It snowed persistently for 48 hours. Flurries. Snow squalls. Lake-effect snow. There’s somewhere north of a foot of the white stuff covering parts of Chicagoland today. The local papers and TV newscasts reported on it like it was the end of the world, because snowstorms have been known to topple Chicago mayors who don’t send the plows out in time.
But our upcoming “Arctic blast” is another matter. You can’t plow the cold away. You simply have to face it. That doesn’t make much of a news story. So why get overwrought about it? Just get longjohns.
After 11 years here, I don’t bat an eye with the best of them. It’s just the way the middle of a continent rolls in winter–the temperature tossing and turning through huge peaks and troughs. In Chicago, phrases like “high temperature will occur at midnight” and “mercury will steadily fall for the next 24 hours” aren’t lines from a B movie where the earth has suddenly been launched away from the sun. They’re just things Tom Skilling says. Often. (And even if I wanted to complain about them I couldn’t because Tom’s really nice and lives downstairs.)
I may end up in Los Angeles before the next winter sets in, but I’m going to make the best of it while I’m still here. Like my fellow Chicagoans, I take pride in my cold-weather hardiness. I know that when the wind chill is minus 38–for example, next Monday morning at 11–my breath may freeze my glasses to my cheeks, but my thermal underwear and Michelin-man layering will keep the rest of me warm.
While the paramedics are trying to defrost my face.
Mike
I’m an #OpenlyAutistic gay, Hispanic, urbanist, Disney World fan, New York native, politically independent, Jewish blogger in Chicago. I believe in social justice, big cities, and public transit. I write words and raise money for nonprofits. I’ve written this blog since 2005. And counting...
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I have survivor’s guilt because I live in Miami and have to worry about my
Chicago family members – I reached your blog when researching Rabbi Goldberg’s impact upon his move to a congregation in
Chicago.
Just for the record, Chicago Public Schools will officially be *open* tomorrow (Monday), when the high will be around 10 below. In fact, CPS will open 90 minutes early, so parents who have to go to work early will be able to drop their kids off inside. Also, told ya’!
I take it back. At the last second today CPS decided to close. (Which really didn’t give Chicago parents much notice. Ah, Chicago.)
I put on the hat and gloves in the 50’s. I am not a fan of anything under 65 and when it goes below 50, I’m freaking freezing. That being said, I’m just cold by nature. I can set the thermostat on 70 in the house and I still wear two pairs of pants, two shirts, wool socks and put a heating pad underneath my blankets while I watch tv or read. Chicago is a lovely city…but I think I’d freeze to death.
You wouldn’t, but I know how you feel. I’m like you. I love a house with the heat north of 70. (Ryan not so much.) But you actually do get used to it. Floridians say the same thing about the heat and humidity and I never believe them, either. That’s also what explains all that ski-lodge attire when L.A. has an *alleged* winter cold wave in the 50s.
Actually a wind chill of -38 degrees isn’t bad. We’ve had wind chills here in Chicago of -80 degrees twice. Once it was when I went to Australia the first time. We actually made the Australian news. The second time I was here in Chicago.
Ding ding ding. You mentioned your Australia vacation. I’m sorry but we all got together and decided that we had to charge you from now on if you keep talking about it. You owe me 25 cents. 😉
Great post, Michael. I’m sending this to my friends so they can (maybe) understand my derision at them when they complain about frigid temps in the mid-30’s. I’ve heard time and time again that if you can make it through a Chicago winter, you can make it through winter anywhere. And I think that’s true.
I can’t help thinking that sentence isn’t a ringing endorsement for Chicago winter. More like a very pithy cautionary tale. 😉
It is. It basically means: if you move here, you better be tough enough for our winters. 🙂
Or they’ll toughen you!