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Spring often brings some windy days — but rarely anything like that of April 12, 1934. That day, the observatory at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire recorded an astounding gust of wind at 231 miles an hour. That’s the highest ever recorded on the face of the earth and equal to the wind speed in strong tornadoes. The next year, nature delivered a runner-up as a hurricane hit the Florida Keys with 200 mile an hour gusts. Chicago is known as the windy city, but its average yearly wind speed of a little over 10 miles an hour is behind Cheyenne, Wyoming, at nearly 13. Four other cities average over 12 miles an hour — Boston; Great Falls, Montana; Wichita, Kansas; and Oklahoma City.

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