The other day, I had a call from my son-in-law’s dad back in England in advance of their upcoming visit. “So, what’s the weather like where you are?” he said. “Had much snow?”
“Some,” I told him. “But it’s a little chilly, so you’ll need to pack a coat.”
“Hope it’s not too cold,” he said. “About 10 degrees would be good if you could manage that.”
I thought for a minute and then realized what he was saying. “You’re talking Celsius, right?” In Fahrenheit, that’s a balmy 50 degrees. Knowing we’d be lucky to see that for more than two consecutive days by April, I simply said, “I’ll see what I can do. Maybe bring two coats.”
The Naperville weather has always been interesting to me and all my overseas visitors. Regardless of the time of year they visit, we always tell them to bring the following: a warm overcoat, a light sweater, a tank top, a wooly hat, a sunhat, suntan lotion, snow shoes, sandals, a snow shovel and a fan. You can never be too prepared.
To be fair, we were warned when we first moved here that the weather could be changeable. “If you don’t like the weather today, come back tomorrow,” locals said, laughing. You were right. A self-confessed weather nerd from England, I find the diversity here fascinating.
There can be a difference of 20 degrees from one day to the next. Global warming? Doesn’t bother me. Now, global cooling, that would be a problem. Nothing can really prepare you for the cold of a Chicago winter.
Some years ago, my son and his friends booked to visit us in January. Before you pull your hair out and shout, “Why? Why?” it’s because the air fares are ever so slightly cheaper. Can’t think why.
“It’ll be fine, we’ll wrap up warm,” he promised, as if he were going out to watch a game of soccer in England in July.
A couple of winters ago, my daughter and her husband visited. What fun we had slithering across a bridge over the Chicago River! Why jostle with other skaters in Millennium Park when you can risk life and limb simply trying to cross the street unaided?
Cozy scenes of families snuggled around the fire that seem so inviting in early November are replaced by the reality of banging lumps of ice off your boots and leaving the faucets dripping so your pipes don’t freeze. The holiday season is over and there’s nothing to look forward to until spring, when the weeds start popping their heads above ground.
Sometimes, it seems like the winter weather has actually gotten worse in the 10 years I’ve lived here, but that isn’t actually true. There is always some snow, some days the temperatures drop to 25 below, some spring-like days and on average, weather forecasters will tell you to “bundle up from head to toe” 845 times. They are true life-savers. Without the advice, I’d probably go out in t-shirt and shorts and get frostbite.
What is true is the media strives to make our winter weather more dramatic every year. “We’re expecting a nor’easter with up to a foot of snow” loses its sense of urgency if you say it year in, year out. A couple of years back, it became a polar vortex. Now, that sounded much scarier. Everyone loves the North Pole because it’s where Santa lives, but do we want its weather? No sir. We no longer have blizzards, it’s snowmageddon!
What could be more fun than watching The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore battling the elements as you sit by the fire sipping a hot chocolate? How do female weather reporters manage to avoid frostbite while still looking stylish in their parkas and bobble hats?
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When we first moved here, I couldn’t wait to show my English friends the old science experiment Chicagoland kids have no doubt grown up with. The one where you throw boiling water out the door and it freezes on impact, turning into a giant cloud. Video running, we opened the back door, and whoosh — so cool in more ways than one.
Another benefit of frigid weather is that you can play ice hockey in your back yard. When I first heard my neighbors clanking about in late fall, I assumed they were building an addition, but state-of-the-art floodlighting revealed a professional-sized rink. Their two little boys are out swishing about most days after school, and to think I used to believe we had to install a pool to keep up with the Joneses.
Turns out, if you have too much snow, you can always use any excess to make ice cream. All you need to do is mix it with sugar, vanilla and milk and give it an appropriate name like a frosty or a blizzard. To be fair, mine came out tasting more like sorbet than ice cream, but at least it won’t run out until spring.
A few years on, the polar vortex has been given the cold shoulder, so this year we have had some new terms to learn about – bomb cyclone and bombogenesis. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, bombogenesis is a mid-latitude cyclone that rapidly intensifies, so basically a strong, fast moving cyclone. Specifically, it refers to a condition when the storm’s pressure system drops more than 24 millibars in 24 hours. (No, I have no idea what a millibar is either). The resulting storm from this system is known as a bomb. So now, in addition to threats from terrorists and North Korea, we have to contend with Mother Nature bombing us as well.
The good news is that all these weather warnings do not seem to faze the average Napervillian. “When we were young, we’d be outside playing in a blizzard,” they say. “We’d throw another log on the fire, then skip out to Cock Robin for ice cream.”
One thing I notice a surprising lack of around here is snowmen. It doesn’t snow often in London, but as a child, if we got an inch, my sister and I rushed outside to begin building. It’s not as easy as it looks, so the snowman usually ended up as a small pile of snow with one of my dad’s hats perched precariously on the top. Do Naperville children prefer to watch videos of Olaf instead of building their own, I wonder?
On Rotary Hill, the cold weather doesn’t stop children sledding. I actually tried it once myself, the January my son visited. It looked so fun, it just brought out the kid in me, so I jumped on a sled, held on tight and had what was possibly the worse winter experience of my life apart from the time I executed a triple Lutz while bringing in the garbage cart.
Hilary Decent is a freelance writer who moved to Naperville from England a decade ago.