The Chicagoist Weather Experiment: Week Five
By Sarah Dahnke in News on Feb 26, 2007 8:20PM
Chicagoist’s grandfather always made fun of our grandmother’s obsession with The Weather Channel because he said you could predict the weather with a simple tool he called the Weather Ball. To make a Weather Ball, you crumple up a piece of newspaper and place it on your windowsill before you go to bed. In the morning, bring your Weather Ball inside. If it is wet, it’s raining outside. If it is frozen, it’s cold and/or snowing. If it’s dry and hot, it’s most likely dry and hot outside. And if it’s gone, it’s windy.
This was one of our grandpa’s favorite jokes, but in a lot of ways, if you live in the Midwest, it’s just as accurate as watching a weather report. The weather here can change drastically from week to week and from morning to night. We got rather fed up with having to keep track of a meteorologist, since our nightly schedule varies from day-to-day. (Read: We’re more likely to be sipping on whiskey at a bar during the 10 p.m. news than to be sitting on our couch in front of the TV.) So we decided to do some good old-fashioned weather reporting on our own last week. We didn’t enlist the help of a trash ball, but we did use the “walk out on the front porch” method when determining how to prepare for the day.
See if we can do just as good as Skilling and a Doppler radar on our own after the jump.
Monday: The sky was gray, making us think it was still bitterly cold outside, but our morning trip to the porch told us that today may pleasantly surprise us. The air felt slightly humid and even a little warm, and there was almost no wind. We kept our outerwear minimal but were cautious that the sky may suddenly open up and drop ice all over our heads. (Little did we know, that would actually happen on Saturday.) By midday, the little Chicagoist weather bug was telling us it was 44 degrees!
Tuesday: Again, the morning felt warm, since we’re used to rolling out of bed and freezing our ass off until we turn on a space heater. (Chicagoist’s gas bill got a little out of control this winter, and we’re trying to reduce expenses.) We decided to risk it: short sleeves! The middle of the day was once again sunny and warm, near 50 degrees. Something funny started bubbling inside of us. Maybe it was spring fever. Maybe it was that Chinese food our office ordered for lunch. Either way, it was really nice to be out in the sunshine.
Wednesday: Holy crap. This morning felt so warm we were ready to call in sick and bust out a sun dress. We took it a step further today: no socks. We still brought along a jacket as we headed out for the day because we simply couldn’t believe it was possible to need no jacket in February in Chicago, but we rebelled against the world and didn’t zip up. Yeah, that’s right, mom. We weren’t wearing socks, and we didn’t zip our jacket. And we didn’t catch a cold either!
Thursday: WTF? With the way the week has been progressing, we thought today might be Slip ’n Slide weather. But Thursday morning just felt cold. How lame. And the temperatures seemed to hover right above freezing all day.
Friday: Another chilly morning. And by this time, we were just pissed. We reluctantly put on our outerwear and cursed Mother Nature for leading us to believe there was a chance of a beautiful weekend in sight. Our general rebellion only worked against us. Instead of adequately bundling up, we did a half-assed job and ended up freezing every time we went outside. Guess it’s time to break out the long down coat again.
Fifth week’s conclusion: Walking outside to determine the weather isn’t really a bad idea in the winter. You can generally assume the temperatures won’t increase dramatically from those in the morning, and as long as you’re prepared (at least mentally) for a freak blizzard in the middle of the day (Sunday, anyone?), then you can get away with it. It would be interesting to try this same experiment in a less predictable season, such as spring or fall, and see if the results remained the same.