Data Analysis

This graph shows the average temperature in the contiguous United States for the month of March from 1901-2000.

This graph is showing the temperature trend for the month of March across the contiguous United States. The trend shows that the average temperature has been slightly on the rise in recent years. This year and last seem to be the exception to this trend with temperatures below the monthly average. The temperatures were very similar, but this year was slightly cooler than it was last year.

This graph shows the average temperature in Wisconsin for the month of March from 1901-2000.

The overall trend for temperatures in March appears to be rising slightly. Although last March the temperature was below average, this year it was even cooler yet with an average temperature around 21° F. With this year having an average temperature of 21° F, it was well below the average March temperature of 28° F. The trend seems to be very similar to that of the contiguous United states in that the temperature is gradually rising but the last two years have been well below average.

This is a graph showing the average precipitation for the month of March in Wisconsin.

The overall trend for March precipitation in Wisconsin seems to be fairly consistent with the average. There are some years where the total amount of precipitation is well below or above the average, but there does not appear to be an evident trend of something changing. Last year Wisconsin was slightly above the average amount of precipitation with about 2” of precipitation. This year Wisconsin was slightly below the average of 1.8” of precipitation and had about 1.10” of precipitation.

This is a map showing the precipitation distribution by region across the contiguous United States for the month of March in 2014. Most regions were near or below the average while only one region had the record amount of precipitation.

This map shows the different temperature ranges by region across the contiguous United States for the month of March in 2014.

Much of the eastern United States experienced either below average or well below average temperatures for the month of March in 2014 while most of the west experienced just the opposite. Most of the west was either near their average temperature or much above the average temperature. This graph shows that even if you have had gradual increases for temperature for the month of March long term, there are still areas that experience temperatures well below the average. 



Based on tabular data also included at this site, the top ten coldest years for the United States are 1917, 1904, 1950, 1924, 1951, 1912, 1929, 1972, 1907 and 1979. The top ten warmest years for the United States are 2012, 1931, 1998, 1987, 2006, 1921, 1999, 2001, 2005 and 2010. Knowing this data ties in with the debate dealing with climate change. The average temperature for an area helps to show if the global trend of temperatures rising is happening on a more local scale as well. When looking at the precipitation charts with the changing temperatures, it may imply that as temperatures rise, it may impact the amount of rainfall the certain areas of the country gets. When you look at the top ten warmest years, and 7 of the ten have been in the last 20 years and there has been 119 years of data collection. With that being said, it seems that climate change is happening.

When looking at two cities in Wisconsin on opposite sides of the state, it is interesting to see how different weather statistics compare.

This shows the average rainfall in inches for the cities of Madison and Milwaukee.



This shows the average temperature for the cities of Madison and Milwaukee.

 January is the month with the lowest average temperature for both Madison and Milwaukee. July is the month with the highest average temperature for both Madison and Milwaukee. In Milwaukee, the month with the highest amount of rainfall is February. For Madison, August has the highest amount of average rainfall. January and February are tied for the month with the lowest amount of average rainfall.

In Eau Claire, the amount of precipitation to date since January 1st 2014 is 6.60 inches. There has been 13.1 inches of snowfall to date since March 1st 2014. It is very interesting to look at the amount of snowfall since July 1st 2014 to date which is 74.8 inches. Since this encompasses the whole winter, it shows when the most snowfall fell. Since there was only 13.1 inches since March 1st, it is easy to see that the majority of the snow fell earlier in the winter as opposed to later in the winter. This seems to be the pattern for this winter in a few places. In Minneapolis, the precipitation since March 1st to date is 2.86 inches and the amount of snowfall since March 1st to date is 11.7 inches. The amount of snowfall Minneapolis received since July first to date was 69.8 inches. This goes along with the trend that most of the snow fell earlier in the winter, or prior to March 1st 2014. It is important get data from different areas, because precipitation patterns may vary greatly depending upon what region you are in.

This is a climograph for Eau Claire, WI.

This is a climograph for La Crosse, WI. 

This is a climograph for Madison, WI.

This is a climograph for Milwaukee, WI.

This is a climograph for Minneapolis, MN.

This is a climograph for Superior, WI. 

This is a climograph for Wausau, WI.

When looking at weather trends it is very important to take a look at a few different places and compare them. If you don’t compare data to more than one place, your results may be skewed and you will not get an accurate representation of a certain area or of the variable you are studying. When studying different trends, it is also important to factor in the different geographical features of that city. If you compare weather trends from a city on the coast to a city at the same latitude in the middle of the United States, the weather trends may be very different. The cities shown above are in the same general region, but may have different geographical features affecting their local weather. Some of these cities have higher latitude which may result in cooler overall temperatures since they are farther north. While others are located next to large bodies of water and may not experience as much fluctuation in temperatures as a town like Eau Claire would that is not located near any large body of water. It is also important to see when the data your looking at is collected. With the topic of climate change becoming more popular every year, the newest data contributing to these graphs is still only from the 1990’s. With some of the largest changes happening in more recent years, that data is not included in these results so an accurate representation may not be shown.

Local Weather Conditions January to April 24th

This is a graph showing the temperatures and rainfall for January of 2014 in Eau Claire, WI. The left side is the temperatures in °F and the right side represents the amount of rainfall in inches.

This is a graph shows the different wind directions that Eau Claire, WI experienced in January 2014. 

In Eau Claire, the month of January was very cold. The temperature had no consistent pattern, it was just sporadic and rose and fell as different weather patterns passed. There no recorded precipitation for the whole month of January so there is no way to see if temperature correlates with precipitation patterns. When looking at the wind direction, WNW and W make up over half of the graph. This makes sense for what time of year it is. These wind directions are usually associated with colder air masses and cooler temperatures.

This is a graph showing the temperatures and rainfall for February of 2014 in Eau Claire, WI. The left side is the temperatures in °F and the right side represents the amount of rainfall in inches.

This is a graph shows the different wind directions that Eau Claire, WI experienced in February 2014.

For the month of February, the first ten days did not have any data recorded for them. This creates a slight problem when trying to see if any pattern exist between temperature and precipitation. From the data that is provided, there is no apparent trend for the data. The temperature does not seem to be on a gradual rise or fall, but similar to January with it's sporadic movements. Since there is only one day with recorded precipitation, there is no way to assess if there is a pattern occurring. When looking at the winds, once again the westerly wind direction is the most dominant. This still makes sense due the cold temperatures that were experienced during the month. 

This is a graph showing the temperatures and rainfall for March of 2014 in Eau Claire, WI. The left side is the temperatures in °F and the right side represents the amount of rainfall in inches.

This is a graph shows the different wind directions that Eau Claire, WI experienced in March 2014.

March is the first month where there appears to be a trend with the temperature. It has days where the temperatures slightly rises and drops, but overall it is gradually rising. The vernal equinox occurred on March 20th. Since there is more solar radiation heating up the earth, this rise in temperature is expected. Similar to January and February, March also experienced a limited amount of days that received precipitation. The wind direction pattern for March does follow the same as January and February did. The wind pattern is much more evenly distributed. This could be due to different air masses moving into the area with a rise in temperature. 

This is a graph showing the temperatures and rainfall for April of 2014 in Eau Claire, WI. The left side is the temperatures in °F and the right side represents the amount of rainfall in inches.

This is a graph shows the different wind directions that Eau Claire, WI experienced in April 2014.

April, similar to February, has some data that is missing. There is a window in the middle of the month where no data was recorded. By looking at the data that was provided, it is to difficult to make an accurate analysis of what was happening with the temperature. It is also difficult to tell if temperature relates to precipitation due to the lack of data for the month. One thing that is interesting when comparing these graphs is the wind directions and amount of days there was precipitation. Even thought there were a few days missing, there were still many days that had precipitation. The dominant wind direction was of an easterly direction which corresponds directly with the amount of days we received precipitation. An east wind is usually associated with precipitation of some form, so that is why they correspond so closely. 

Overall Weather Patterns

In Eau Claire, we had the coldest winter on record for this year with an average temperature of 7.5° F. We also experienced a fair amount of snowfall, much of it falling before January 1st 2014. This whole winter we have received 74.8 inches of snowfall, much of that coming late in 2013. After the first of the year, it became much drier and got extremely cold for a long time. Most of the winter we were in a the middle of a trough in the polar jet stream. At some points in the winter, it dipped as low as Texas. When these troughs occurred, it allowed for a polar vortex to drop into the upper Midwest. Those systems are what what brought our region of the country the extremely cold temperatures. When the air got that cold, we did not receive any precipitation. These cold temperatures contributed to the drier second half of the winter season in Eau Claire. When the air gets as cold as it was, large snowstorms are not able to form, which contribute to drier winters. As temperatures have been warming up recently, we have seen more rainy days. As temperatures have warmed up, the jet stream has straightened out which has allowed for more storm systems to travel over our area. These different systems are following the jet streams, which put us right in the middle to get more rain. As the jet stream shifts, so to will storm patterns shift. It is these different patterns that affect the weather we experience in Eau Claire each and everyday.