It's Curious City, where we take your questions about Chicago and the region, and investigate, report, explore, from WBEZ.

Tony Raines describes himself as a weather geek, kind of a compulsive weather checker. At night, he listens to this guy.

The forecast is for anywhere from three to six inches of snow. of a compulsive weather checker. At night, he listens to this guy.

The forecast is for anywhere from three to six inches of snow.

And when he's not checking Tom Skilling of WGN, he's using his phone apps like Weather Underground,

weather.com, and high-deaf radar. Tony grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut. So I was used to pretty predictable weather, but I've also lived in other places that are pretty

easy to predict.

Then he moved to Chicago, where he says the weather seems like it can change dramatically

from one moment to the next, and forecasts don't seem as consistently accurate.

I've always heard that the lake was this amazing thing that made it very difficult to predict.

So he came to curiosity to find out. Is it harder to predict the weather in Chicago than in other places?

Tony's not alone to wonder. You hear people complain all the time about how unpredictable

the weather can be here. Perhaps this is even the least predictable big city when it comes to weather.

I'm Alexandra Solomon, editor for Curious City. And even if you don't check the weather quite as often as Tony, chances are you do check it.

Because we depend on the weather forecast to make all kinds of decisions, like what to wear, or when to plan a family barbecue, or even whether to evacuate our home.

And when it doesn't seem accurate, it can be downright infuriating.

So to figure out if Chicago's weather is as hard to predict as Tony thinks it is, we headed out to

Northern Illinois University. It's about an hour west of Chicago. There we met with Victor

Gensini in the same classroom where he teaches future meteorologists.

So I love weather. I'm a giant what we call weather weenie.

Jensini's been interested in the weather ever since he was a teenager in central Illinois.

Essentially when I was in high school, a tornado hit my high school. And unfortunately,

...