Data Analysis

Part one of my data analysis involves looking at national average temperatures versus Wisconsin average temperatures over a long period of time. Some dates to make a note of are the top 10 coldest and the top 10 warmest March's dating back to 1983.

We can see from these numbers that over time we are gradually getting warmer and warmer, these graphs below will illustrate those numbers better. Keep in mind the Climate Change debate and how people will continue to dispute numbers and raw data.

Graph showing the average temperature for the state of Wisconsin in the month of March since 1983

Graph showing the average temperature for the nation in the month of March since 1983

We can also look at regional maps to see where most of this warming is happening, or where it is not happening.

We can see from this map that there is alot of warming happening in the west but not as much in the east.

Precipitation is another good indicator of climate change. These graphs and the map below should illustrate how precipitation might play into the climate change debate and where it might be most prominent.

Graph showing precipitation change in Wisconsin since 1983

Graph showing precipitation change in the nation since 1983

Map showing that we have not really been seeing much change over time in precipitation and if anything it is below average

Part two of the lab had me looking at Madison and Milwaukee's temperature and precipitation data. This is interesting because even though they are in the same state, they are in different climatic zones relative to Lake Michigan. Lets take a look.

Graph showing the average temperature for each city by month.

We can see from the graph above that there is not much temperature change between Madison and Milwaukee. This makes sense considering they are at roughly the same latitude.

Graph showing the average precipitation for each city by month

This graph unlike the other does an excellent job of showing the difference between each city. With Milwaukee's position right on Lake Michigan we can see that for the most of the year they receive more precipitation due to lake effect. The question now is why is it not across the board, why does Madison receive more precipitation in the months of May, June, and August?

For some context the Minimum and Maximum values are as follows:
Maximum Temperature:
Madison at 71 degrees Fahrenheit in July
Minimum Temperature:
Madison at 16 degrees Fahrenheit in January
Maximum Precipitation:
Madison at 4 inches in August
Minimum Precipitation:
Madison at 1.1 inches in January

Seeing that Madison has the holds on the Min/Max for both cities could tell us that their weather varies more than Milwaukee's does.


Part three of the Data Analysis was looking at a daily climate report for Eau Claire and Minneapolis (LaCrosse had no data). I then looked at this weather data since March of 2015 and since then I was able to generate this table from the data I received.

	Precipitation to date:	Snowfall to date
Minneapolis	3.15	7.1
Eau Claire	4.53	7.3

 One question we can ask is why do these two cities differ so much from each other.
Well these two cities are still a couple hours away from each other so alot can happen in that large of a distance. The real question, especially when we gather our data from our weather blogs is why the weather can differ from within the same city!

My answer to this would simply be that depending on where you get your data from, their weather station could be in its own microclimate and could vary greatly between even 50 yards depending on wind or even how the sun hits it.


Then I went to worldclimate.com to look at some more city weather data. When looking at Eau Claire's weather data, I saw that it dates back to 1949! After some more snooping around I made several Climographs that you can view below.

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in Eau Claire

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in Minneapolis

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in LaCrosse

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in Milwaukee

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in Superior

Climograph showing the relation of temperature and precipitation by month in Wausau

 By looking at all of these climographs we can see that all the cities have a relationship between their temperature and precipitation. We also can see that some cities have more proportionally more rain compared to higher temperatures than some of the other cities.

Now that we have looked at many different sites we can that data can differ from site to site and its important to look at these different sites because you can see that it changes. By looking at multiple sites however, we can start to find the most common recordings for our weather data.

Like I said before, depending on where the weather sensors were when the data was collected, we can see that your numbers can be completely off and only be so many yards away from one another. By looking at different sites we could even find which sensors may be exposed to more sunlight if they consistently have higher temperature readings.

The data that I have collected during this data analysis is much different than what I normally collect for my weather blog because most of this data is climate data, otherwise known as long term data. However, by comparing the two (weather and climate) we can start to pick our patterns if we see that our current weather is acting differently than the long term climate model for our area. This way we can know if we are experiencing a much colder February than normal for example.

All in all, it is always important to compare your data to what others have compiled. If you start to see major differences, that should raise a red flag and beg the most important question of all time: WHY?