Windy Days

There's something I've always wondered about. First of all, it's very windy here. However, to me the windiness is probably nothing to those of you up north. My question is, how come when it's windy here it's like 24 mph wind and when it's windy up north it's 70mph? To us, 70 mph is almost a hurricane. So how come high winds here feel like more than it does other places? If I tell a friend in NY we're having high winds they'd laugh at my 24 mph but if they tell me they are having 70 mph winds I'm like, "Wow!" I totally do not get it.