Erica's Answer:
If you're walking between tall buildings, the wind will get funneled through the relatively small space between the buildings, creating a "wind tunnel" effect. In the suburbs that surround Philadelphia, the buildings are not nearly as tall, so there's nothing to slow the wind down before it funnels in between the tall city skyscrapers. Also, in the winter, the wind blows mainly from the north and west. Why is this significant? Because in Philadelphia, we are at a lower elevation than locations to our north and west. Winds get faster as they move down the slopes of a mountain, so it's entirely possible that we had some faster winds in Philadelphia because of the acceleration of the winds off the mountains to our north and west.- Erica
