Kansas Trivia - Continued

"Dodge City is the windiest city in the United States." El Dorado Times, January 29, 2009, Page 1B.

This bit of trivia, like the other 49 facts printed in the El Dorado Times, can be found on several Web sites. One of them is called 50States.Com, which gives the windiest city "honor"(?) to Dodge City at an average wind speed of 13.9 mph. Another web site, WikiAnswers.Com, sticks to the popular designation of Chicago, the Windy City, as the windiest, but doesn't give a speed value. ChaChaAnswers claims Blue Hill Observatory, Massachusetts with an average annual wind speed of 15.4 mph is the windiest.

In order to settle the question as to which city is the windiest and to stimulate the manufacture, distribution and installation of wind speed measurement equipment, a federal program is needed to pay for a wind speed indicator to be erected in each city in the United States. The ultimate pay off would be identifying the best lcoation for wind generators. Oops, perhaps this equipment already exists in weather reporting stations in cities. Never mind. The real question is, who researches and publishes these lists of state trivia, which appear in half a dozen Web sites and are used in numerous other commercial sites. Looks like the subject for a future post.