Weather
Last week, temps were in the 60s in Chicago. This week, it’s muggy and it’s in the high 80s. I always tease people that Chicago doesn’t have a spring. Seriously, it was in the 60s for a week and now it’s in the high 80s.There is no in-between.
It never makes sense and yet, Chicagoans always hold out hope *this year* will be the year we have a real spring, just like they hold out hope that *this year* is the year the Cubs will do something other than play high school baseball and fill their stands with a bunch of drunks. But, I digress.
The wide swings of Chicago weather over the past week make me think about weather, the big picture. We all have things we love and hate about weather. Those love-hate relationships often determine where we choose to live. Or where we wish we could live. Or where we most certainly wouldn’t ever live.
Me, I like four seasons. I like snow and cold in the winter and sun and warmth in the summer. I like leaves changing in the fall and flowers blooming in the spring. I can’t imagine living somewhere where I didn’t get a taste of each.
However, that doesn’t mean I love everything about all four seasons. For example, some things I hate are constant clouds, humidity and rain. I likely dislike the rain because I’m a curly-haired girl and rain just means frizz is in my own personal forecast. Clouds usually come with rain. But, more importantly, they deny me that really important Vitamin D exposure from the sun. It makes me cranky.
But, humidity? I really hate humidity. And it’s not just the frizzy mop on my head that’s the cause for my hate. I hate walking out the door and immediately feeling sweaty. I hate the difficulty of breathing in the thick air. I hate how sluggish I feel before I’ve lifted a finger. I hate hate hate humidity.
And that’s why I couldn’t ever live in, say, Florida. Or Texas. Or Louisiana. Not a chance.
Given my love for the four seasons and hate for rain and humidity, I’m sure you’re wondering if Chicago is the ideal place for me to live. Well, it’s definitely got the four seasons. But, there are two fundamental problems with Chicago weather: humidity in the summer and clouds in the winter. It’s depressing when all you see are gray skies for months on end.
Perfect weather for me is most likely found in the mountains of Montana, Idaho, Wyoming or Colorado. Places where there are certainly four seasons, but there is more sun in the winter and less humidity in the summer.
What about you – what are your love-hates with the weather and are you living in the ideal location given those requirements?
May 27th, 2010 at 6:44 am
Living in New England I get to enjoy all four seasons (5 in VT if you count Mud Season). I hate the heat and humidity and LOVE the snow so I’d be happy to join you in Colorado. If we don’t get good snow next winter I’m thinking of moving to Alaska. I need to get some miles on my snowmobile.
May 27th, 2010 at 7:47 am
I get all 4 seasons and for the most part, I really enjoy that. The only one I dont like is winter, which sometimes lasts too long. I’m not a fan of humidity either so I never really envision myself moving to someplace like FL or TX.
May 27th, 2010 at 8:26 am
We don’t get snow but Northern California DOES get four seasons, despite what some people on the East Coast may believe. It’s never humid and no matter how it was that day, every night the temperature drops to cool everything down. Those are the two things I hate about NYC weather: the humidity and how nighttime temperatures stay in the 70s in the summer.
May 27th, 2010 at 8:50 am
i do love colorado, i really do. but, it’s not supposed to be 89 degrees right now…it’s just not. and it’s also not supposed to have snowed in May…but it did. i do like the fact that typically, colorado is not humid, however, last summer….kinda humid. i don’t know what is going on with the weather, but it’s making for a tough “spring”
May 27th, 2010 at 9:15 am
I like having all four seasons, but I don’t think I need the extremes we get in Chicago! So, I guess I am not in the ideal location. I like Colorado too.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:18 am
That’s so funny, becuase I feel like this year Chicago got way more of a spring than usual- the weather in the 60s was springlike, and there were a couple of high 60s/low 70s weeks. In fact, I was just commenting to John how nice it was to get an actual spring this year before it got hot this week! (Have you seen the forecast for this weekend? Picture perfect!)
May 27th, 2010 at 9:21 am
I’m from Texas and I can tell you that the humidity really isn’t that bad! Although I’m from Austin and not some awful coastal town. The thing that gets me about Chicago is the 4:30pm sunset in the winter. It’s dark before I even leave work! That said, I really love the changing seasons. In Texas it’s hot or less hot. I’m loving the temperate summers of Chicago!
May 27th, 2010 at 9:21 am
i’m right with you. in that, i NEED to be somewhere with the four seasons. or, i at the very least, need to be where i can get FALL. basically if there’s an autumn, then there will be a summer, spring, and winter, right? new england works for me, OTHER than the humidity, which i too really hate on.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:53 am
February just about kills me every year here. The damp. The lingering snow. The cold. The clouds. It’s bad. Like, really bad. But then the snow melts and I don’t want to stab people in the neck anymore and I forget about it and then we’re laying at the beach in May and we’ve forgotten about it.
Until next year. When we get stabby all over again.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:57 am
As you already know, North Carolina has perfect weather! We have the 4 seasons, just not to the extreme. We got snow this past winter, quite a bit of it. Yeah, it can be humid, but you get that pretty much anywhere you go in the summer.
I’ve lived in all 3 states you mention you would not want to live and yeah, you don’t want to live in Florida, Texas or Louisiana. During the summer it feels like you’re walking around in a wet sponge.
May 27th, 2010 at 10:08 am
I live in Atlanta and it’s like humidity hell here. Not quite as bad as New Orleans tho. I hate it.
May 27th, 2010 at 10:11 am
I love 4 seasons too. For me New England is the ideal place to live for weather purposes. I could never, ever do Florida or Louisiana. Humidity is the devil!
May 27th, 2010 at 10:41 am
I’m with you--humidity is the thing I can’t stand. I also hate days and days without sun. That’s why I love Denver.
May 27th, 2010 at 10:48 am
Yep. In Texas. In HOUSTON. Humidity central. I hate it. I HATE snow though. I hate the cold. So I’d rather live here than where I grew up in Ohio. Hubs says we’ll retire in Colorado. I’m ok with this. I won’t be working so the snow won’t be a huge issue since I won’t have to go out in it if I don’t want to. Nothing made me more angry about Ohio than warming up my car 30 minutes before leaving the house in the morning and shoveling it out of the driveway. I’ll take my 95 degree 100% humidity summers over that ANY day.
May 27th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I hear you on the humidity. I had to do a 6-work week stint in Miami and I seriously thought I was going to kill myself. Aside from the fact that I was sweating by the time I arrived at work everyday, my hair was ginormous. Not a curl girl’s friend.
I do love Chicago… though you are so right about spring. Every year I think “maybe I’m remembering it wrong…” and every year I go away for a weekend (like this past one) and leave when it’s 60 and return when it’s 90. Ugh,
May 27th, 2010 at 1:17 pm
I love Northern California, because while the summer is dry and hot, the winter isn’t too intense and the spring is lovely. I wish the fall lasted a little longer, though. Ah well, it’s pretty lovely all in all!
May 27th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
I also HATE the humidity. It was 94 & ridiculously humid here on Monday -- I tried to do a 6 mile run. Epic fail. I ran 3 and decided I would be insane to keep going (and might die on the running path.).
Like you, I don’t deal well w/ the cloudy/overcast skies/lack of sunshine during the winter months, either. I can handle a few days of it, but when it stretches on for weeks, as it inevitably does, it really screws w/ my moods!
My ideal location woudl definitely be Colorado. I think I read somewhere that they get something like 300 days of sunshine a year. During college, I spent a summer & 2 winter breaks working at a resort & fell head-over-heels in love w/ the state. That said, I really like being close to my parents (and their lake cabin) so I don’t know that I will ever move. But we’ll see, I guess.
May 27th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
My friends and I have a code phrase that applies to me in humid weather: “Frampton Comes Alive.” Yes, my hair gets all curly and twangy and I look like Peter Frampton. Thus, like you, I hate humidity and rain.
It’s raining in So Cal today, if you can believe it! I’d take your 80° weather in a heartbeat right now!
Mr. W and I must have lucked out when we came to Chicago. It was chilly but so beautiful! And actually got quite warm the day we left. I can see why you like it there…but I think I’ll keep my 1 1/2 seasons out here. :)
May 27th, 2010 at 2:51 pm
We kind of get 4 seasons. Fall is awfully warm, but we still get the gorgeous colors and pretty changing light. Personally, I love the humidity. I hate cold, hate snow, hate grey skies, but I looooove feeling like I could reach out and grab a handful of summer air. Yeah, I’m weird!
May 27th, 2010 at 4:40 pm
I lived in the Chicago ‘burbs until I was 8, then lived in Texas until I was 16… and came back up to Chicagoland to go to college. I’ve stayed ever since, and — honestly — it’s not bad. Yeah, the winters suck and I hate being cold, and the summers can be intolerable (especially because A/C isn’t a given, as it is in the South), but it’s okay — there’s the beach when it gets too hot, and there’s electric blankets (and funky snow boots) when it’s freezing.
That being said, if there were a metropolitan area where it was less extreme that had all of the benefits of Chicago (urban metropolis, public transportation, beach/water access, lots o’ culture), that would be ideal. But other than NYC (where the summers are more heat-intensive, while winters are somewhat milder), I can’t think of another US city I’d be willing to live in. For me, I guess the weather is a “price” I pay for living in a big city that has so much to offer. I wouldn’t be able to tolerate it if I lived in, say, the middle of Nebraska. :)
May 27th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
The thing I hate about Vancouver is the constant greyness in the winter. Sometimes it will be weeks before the sky is visible -- the clouds are low and oppressive and I feel like I am drowning in gloom.
What I love about Vancouver is the mild spring and summer. We have nice hot temperatures but not too hot (and no humidity! yay!)
May 27th, 2010 at 5:43 pm
I love having the 4 seasons, too. I’ve lived in Hawaii and southern California, and when there is no real change of season, time seems to pass by so much quicker.
I actually LIKE humidity. I don’t know why or how I developed these feelings, but I just really like it. It doesn’t get very humid here, but I’ve lived in Rhode Island and have spent a lot of time in the DC area so I’ve experienced real humidity. I basically just surrender to it. I know there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just let it envelop me and I love it! Weird, I know. :-)
I hate clouds. HATE them. Seattle has one of the largest sunglasses market in the US because we go so long without seeing the sun each winter that we lose every pair and have to buy new ones once the sun comes out again!
May 27th, 2010 at 9:19 pm
Ideally, I like a place where you can enjoy but not get sick of all four seasons. You’re right that in Chicago, that’s not really possibly all the time. But I do love that first warm day of spring and cool day of fall, makes you look forward to what’s next.
May 27th, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Yikes, this scares me. I hate humidity too and cloudy, gloomy days? No thanks. I wonder how Chicago weather and I are going to get along. Yikes!
May 27th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
I hear you on the humidity thing; while I don’t have curls I do hvae really thick hair that demands a flat iron. Once the humidity shows up, it looks like I’ve never touched it. The funny thing is that when I’m in Florida the humidity actually makes my hair curl more. So Florida and I would be ok. Plus the rain comes and goes very quickly in Florida. Afternoon thunderstorms and then it’s like it never happened!
StL didn’t get much of a spring this year either. It’s been warm, humid, cloudy and rainy this week.
May 28th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
My ideal weather: summer should be warm, but not too hot, between the months of May and October. Spring time should be rainy, but not wintery temps. Fall should be in the 60′s, with some chilly nights, but with no frost. Winter should be no more than 3 months long, filled with snow often. These are my ideal temps. Now to find a place that has them. I can tell you it’s not Utah, that’s for sure. I’m quite tired of 6 months of winter like conditions.
June 3rd, 2010 at 5:50 pm
The weather in Northern California is pretty nice, if I may say so.
Spring and fall are usually lovely, winter is on the “warmer” side with lots of rain, but no snow and summer is a little bit too hot for my liking, but it makes up for it with low humidity.
In Germany, we had more defined seasons, but the problem was that lately (in the last few years), you could never rely on it… on summer was superhot (I think 2003, it was) across Europe, the next year, there was no real summer at all. That can be frustrating as well.