What will the weather be like? Nippy!

I went to a website today trying to find out what the weather would be like for our first stop, in the greater Detroit/South Michigan area, early next week. I was more than slightly amused to find the term ‘nippy’ mentioned as the weather condition for several days next week. Is that a technical term? What is the history of nippy? How does one tell the difference between nippy and chilly, another word used to describe the weather on one of the days? Are there arguments around the water cooler at the office? “Boy it sure is chilly out today.” “It is not chilly, it’s nippy.” “It’s not nippy. Nippy is much worse than this.” “No you idiot, today is very clearly nippy, not chilly!”

OK, enough use of the word nippy for now.