Chicago is 59 miles from the opposite shore of Lake Michigan. Given the earth’s curvature, it should be 2320 feet below the horizon. How can it be seen? Gartner Magic Quadrant 2018 for Enterprise Agile Planning Tools. C Stuart Hardwick , Scifi author and science nerd. Updated Aug 12 2017 · Upvoted by Nick Gorbikoff , Lived in or near Chicago for 18 years and Grant Hartlage , lived in Chicago (2000-2018) · Author has 8.1k answers and 47.7m answer views Well, you might start by checking your math. You are calculating the drop as 8 inches per mile squared, which is wrong. It’s wrong for a lot of reasons, but the biggest is that the 59 miles is measured along the curved surface of the Earth, not along the straight base of a Pythagorean triangle set on a plane, which only gives you a very approximate numb...