Which city is the true "windy city"?

Question

Chicago calls itself "the windy city", but I have seen San Franciscans claim that their city is more windy, even if not so cold as Chicago. So what city is really America's "windy city"?

Answer 1

Dodge City, Kansas is the windiest CITY in the US (6th on the list of windiest US PLACES, but the first actual city to be listed.)

MANHATTAN, Kan. – The links between the wind and Kansas are long and strong. But, how real those links are can depend on viewpoint – no matter if the subject is the state’s wind-speed records, its “windy” name or its ties to the Dust Bowl.

“We have room for claiming Dodge City, Kan., is the windiest city in the United States. The newest analyses put Dodge’s historical annual average wind speed at 13.9 miles per hour,” said Mary Knapp, state climatologist, based with Kansas State University Research and Extension.

Room for that claim exists, however, only because the National Climatic Data Center develops its “windiest” list by comparing the long-term records of 275 weather stations. The current list puts Dodge City in sixth place and Amarillo, Tex., at eighth. Yet, Dodge is the first town. The other stations in the Top 10 are measuring-type equipment on mountaintops, islands and other isolated points, Knapp said.

“ Mount Washington in New Hampshire is No. 1 with an average annual wind speed of 35.1 miles per hour. The summit there also holds the surface wind-speed record of 231 miles per hour, set in 1934,” she said. “So, how windy Dodge City is, is rather relative.”

The Kansas cities of Goodland, Wichita and Concordia are in the NCDC’s top 30 windiest with annual averages of 12.5, 12.2 and 11.9 miles per hour, Knapp said.

Chicago, the self-proclaimed Windy City, is 74th with an average 10.3 miles per hour.

Answer 2

Highland (High Wind), Utah. But I guess that's not as windy as some places in the midwest or on the ocean front. I wouldn't really say either city since it is a city and the buildings block the wind. If you go a bit more out of Chicago, that's where the wind would be. They're both windy for cities, but not compared to other places.

Answer 3

what's ironic is that chicago wasn't originally known as the windy city for it being so windy, but was called the windy city i believe back in the 20's or 40s because the politicians there were doing a lot of yapping and washington DC gave them the nickname windy for that reason.

i live in palmdale, CA which is in a valley that pretty much creates a tunnel for wind to travel through. we can get wind gusts upto 100 mph no problem and all of sudden, too.

also, Kohala on the big island of Hawaii is very windy for the same reasons palmdale is. the Kohala mountains the the mountains on maui create a wind channel between the two islands and gusts can be pretty strong, probably similar to palmdale.

Answer 4

Chicago is known as "the Windy City".

Answer 5

Dude, it has nothing to do about the city being "windy" --Back in the 1930's, Chicago had a bad rep for its corrupt politicians being all talk and no action. They were full of air, so to speak.

Hense, Chicago is known as the Windy City and WE ARE THE WINDY CITY!!!! ( All the rest are posers...)

Answer 6

San Francisco is NOT as windy as Chicago. And they couldn't hang in a Chicago winter. Corpus Christi is pretty friggin' windy too. But Chicago is the true windy city.

Answer 7

Obviously Chicago

Answer 8

Chicago calling it's self "the windy city" has nothing to do with the weather or wind at all. At least that's not how the nickname originated.

This link gives more information on the origin of the name:
http://www.chipublib.org/004chicago/chinicknames.html

Answer 9

I'm in the UK and have always been led to believe that Chicago is America's windy city....

Answer 10

The Unitied Stages