The final project for CSCI 141 involved data-driven exploration of weather trends using weather data from NOAA. Students devised a question, such as “Are there more rainy days in Seattle or Bellingham?”, then wrote programs to parse the data and compute a concrete answer to their question. This page collects the results of these explorations.
If not specified, most of the conclusions below will pertain to the year 2020 because the 2020 data was provided, though some projects involved acquiring additional data.
There were more days that it rained in Seattle thanNew York City in 2020.
Bellingham had 37.25% more of its total precipitation in rain than Salt Lakein 2020, and Salt Lake had 38.15% more of its total precipitation in snow than Bellinghamin 2020.
Compared to Olympia, Bellingham received fewer inches of precipitation and had fewer days when it precipitated.
In 2020, Los Angeles was approximately 0.089 inches drier in average rainfall per day than Bellingham.
The average daily precipitation for Seattle, WAin 2020 was higher than the average daily precipitation for Portland, OR.
From 2015 to 2019, Seattle got an average of 1.684 inches of precipitation in the summer months.
The city of Bellingham had the most amount of days where it was rainier than Seattle and Portland; although Seattle had the highest amountof yearly precipitation at approximately 85.47 inches in comparison to Bellingham’s 81.86 inches and Portland’s 35.8 inches.
Merrill, WI has a higher daily average precipitation than Naval Air Station Whidby Island, WA.
Over January, February, and December in 2020, Seattle received more average daily precipitation than Chicago with an average of ~0.235 inches per day.
Among Las Vegas NV, Crestview FL , Olympia WA, and Omaha NE, the city with the most rainfall between March 20 and April 20, 2020 was Crestview, with a total of 13.52 inches of rain.
While it does rain more often in Bellingham and Seattle than New York, Chicago, and Boston, the rain we get in Washington is often less intense than in other cities.
Between Bellingham and Seattle, during the fall monthsof 2020 (Sept. - Nov.), Bellingham had a higher daily average total liquid content precipitation than Seattle.
From January 2020-December 2020, Portland had a higheraverage precipitation than Seattle.
When comparing Boston and New York city’s average temperature, annually, it is found that Boston has cooler weather, hence, I will be moving there for job opportunities.
In Bellingham the warmest time of day ranges from an average of 10:18AM in January to a latest time of 1:48PM in August.
The daily average dry bulb temperatures of Seattle and Bellingham were exactly the same 29 times during 2020.
In both Bellingham Washington and in Durham North Carolina, there are comparable amounts of days during the summer months in which there is a sizeable variance above the 30-year average for temperature in each location.
The average temperature of five west coast cities in the summer months of 2020 was less than the average temperature of five east coast cities during the same time period.
Over 2020, Denver has an average hourly percent relative humidity of 50.6% and Bellingham has 76.7%, so Bellingham is more humid than Denver.
The town of RIchland, WA had an overall higher average temperature than Tucson, AZ for the year of 2020
On average, Denver has a higher hourly wind speed than Phoenix.
Chicago was on average windier 202 days out of the year, whereas Bellingham was on average windier 162 days of the year, and they tied 2 days of the year, so we can say that Chicago is the Windier city.
The average wind speed for each month in Bellingham varys but not very much.
During September 2020 through November 2020, the wind speeds in Bellingham, WA was, on average, greater than both Oklahoma City, OK, and Spokane, WA.
Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas is likely to experience conditions that produce a thunderstorm, but not likely to experience conditions necessary for a supercell storm capable of forming a tornado, namely temperatures above 55F and wind speed of 20 knots or more.
Among Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Seattle, the highest mean and median wind speed occurs in Philadelphia, while Los Angeles has the highest mode, meaning that Philadelphia is the windiest of the three cities.
The average wind speed in Bellingham is slightly faster during the day than at night.
Seattle had a higher average hourly wind speed but a very similar average daily peak wind speed to Bellingham for the year 2020.
In the year 2020, the lowest-visibility month in Bellingham was September, and the highest-visibility month was August.
Bellingham hadover 13 times more clear hourly observations than Boston in the months June, July, and August of 2020.
San Francisco has a decent portion of days that are overcast, but far less than Seattle; San Francisco’s weather favors far more clear skies.
There were 112 days during the 2020 that were perfect for paragliding in Bellingham based on wind speed, wind direction, and precipitation amount.
Day lengths are not always longer in Los Angeles than in Seattle. During the winter and fall Los Angeles has longer days, while Seattle has longer days during the summer and springmonths.
When comparing Bellingham to Portland, during the summer Bellingham is warmer, less windy, but slightly more rainy with an average of 0.01 more inches of precipitation per day.