Wind itself is silent.

A howling wind can make it seem as though the air itself is roaring across the landscape. But what we hear on a gusty day isn’t the moving air itself — it’s the way that air interacts with the environment. And the different sounds we associate with wind depend on exactly what the air encounters along the way.

Sound is produced when vibrations travel through a medium such as air to reach our ears. Wind, by itself, is simply air that flows from areas of higher pressure to lower pressure. Smooth air moving uniformly doesn’t vibrate in a way that produces sound waves our ears can detect, so in perfectly unobstructed conditions, the wind could move past you without making any audible noise at all.

Chicago is the windiest city in the United States.

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Despite its nickname, Chicago isn’t the country’s windiest city. (In fact, it doesn’t even crack the top 10.) That distinction goes to Cheyenne, Wyoming.

The familiar sounds we associate with wind come from friction. As moving air collides with buildings, rustles leaves, squeezes through cracks, or rushes past uneven surfaces, it creates tiny pressure changes and vibrations. Those disturbances generate sound waves, which is why wind can whistle through a narrow opening or roar through a forest canopy. The faster and more chaotic the airflow becomes, the louder those interactions tend to be.

That’s also why different environments give wind different “voices.” A city full of buildings produces whistles and echoes, forests produce rustling and rushing sounds, and open plains may seem almost silent even when the air is moving quickly.

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