The city of Chicago, Illinois, is nicknamed "The Windy City". But it has nothing to do with the weather.
Chicago doesn't even rank on most top-10 lists for wind speeds in America.
One of the first known instances of Chicago's "windy city" nickname came from a New York Sun reporter named Charles A. Dana in 1893, who editorialized that the city's politicians were "full of hot air."
Chicago and New York were in a head-to-head competition at the time to host the next World's Fair, and Chicago's "windbag" advocates were not shy about campaigning for their hometown to win. Despite Dana's best efforts to discredit Chicago as a "windy city", the 1893 World's Fair was held in Illinois, not New York.