Figure 1 shows the changes in March’s
temperature over the years in the US.
This year has been much than last year. Some places, however, did not
have colder temperatures; they actually
had above average temperatures. The
places with higher than average temperatures were states located along the west
coast; everyone else had colder temperatures this year. Even though this year’s ongoing winter makes
some people reject the idea of global warming, the graph in figure 1 shows that
over the years, the temperature changes are on a pretty steady increase.
The month with the highest average
temperature in Madison is July with the average being 71 degrees. The coldest month in Madison is January with
an average of 16 degrees. Milwaukee’s
warmest month on average is July with 70.9 as the average temperature. January is the coldest month with an average
Temperature of 18.9 degrees.
Madison WI gets the most precipitation in august, with 4
inches being the average. January and February are tied for the least amount of
precipitation with 1.1 inches as the average rainfall. July and August get the most rain in
Milwaukee; the average rainfall for those months is 3.5”. The month with the least amount of rainfall
is February which gets about 1.5” on average.
Both cities
peak in July with temperature and have their coldest month in January. Both
cities are pretty close to the same temperatures; the warmest and coldest
temperatures only range by about 1 degree. Milwaukee averages totaled are .9
degrees warmer than Madison. The times
of most precipitation are the same as well, only differing by .5” and the month
of least precipitation differs by .4 inches.
Overall Milwaukee receives 2 more inches of rainfall each year than
Madison.
Comparing
weather from Minneapolis to Eau Claire, you can see that Eau Claire has gotten
more precipitation over time.
Minneapolis has gotten 2.73” of precipitation and 6.8” of snow while Eau
Claire has gotten 3.55” of precipitation and 7.1” of snow. Eau Claire getting more snow could be because
we get more effects from the great lakes.
The data may also be off because Minneapolis is so big, it’s hard to
know exactly which areas the data comes from.
Weather throughout the city may all be different.
Looking at world climate, the data
for Eau Claire’s airport area is from 1949-1993. This can be a problem because as we saw in
figure one, the climate has been warming.
If you compare this old data to other areas with new data the results
will be inaccurate.
Comparing
data with multiple locations will give more accurate results of how Eau Claire
differs from all surrounding areas.
Comparing it to one other place doesn’t give as much detail on how much
we are affected by our geography. You
need to see certain cities compared to many other geographies to get a full
grasp. Water, Mountains, valleys, and
Building structures all influence the climate of each location. Larger bodies
of water may cause much more precipitation.
Mountains and valleys will change dew points from area to area and block
winds. Buildings and higher populated
areas cause what we learned about before “an Urban Heat Island” by blocking
winds and producing more heat. It basically creates its own climate zone in
specific areas.
When you compare
the climographs you can see a similar pattern between precipitation and
Temperature. The Temperature gets higher
mid-summer and the precipitation goes up with it until peak temperature there
is a dip in the precipitation level. The
dip could be caused by the air being able to hold more moisture. Milwaukee has a strange rise in precipitation
April and November. Most of the other
cities have small increases of precipitation in those areas but Milwaukees
really stands out. They are a larger
city and are located next to a large body of water that will cause more
precipitation to hit them during eastern winds.
For the most part the Temperature lines on the graphs keep
the same pattern in their own month.
February and January have a similar shape while April and March have a
similar shape to eachother. All the
months seem to have low temperatures at the beginning/end of the month. As far as precipitation, April has the
most. Though the winter months have a
lot of snow, snow accounts for a lot fewer inches.
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