Weather

I recently had a conversation with my father about the weather in Chicago. Whenever we talk about Chicago, he, like everyone else I've talked to, always bemoans the horrid weather in this place. But I simply can't understand why this is. Since I came here, I have actually been delighted at how nice the weather is. Compare it to Portland: it is colder, so it spends more time snowing than raining. Rain makes you wet and soggy, while snow has no such problem. The days here are longer in the winter than in Portland, and therefore less dreary. It is even brighter and sunnier here: Portland has an average of 222 completely cloudy days per year, while Chicago only has 176--a month and a half less cloudy! And lastly, while Portland receives precipitation in a pattern of slow and continuous drizzle, Chicago receives it only in short powerful bursts. So while the annual precipitation in the two locations is comparable, the probability of getting wet when walking outside is much, much less in Chicago. The point of all this is that people must stop complaining about Chicago's weather. Chicago has fantastic weather. Maybe it gets a little hot and humid for a few weeks in the summer, and maybe it gets a little frigid and windy for a few weeks in the winter, but these are merely annoyances, if anything.