Data Analysis of January, February, March and April to date.

So far it seems like it has been a crazy year weather-wise. Here are the past four months summed up.



Temperature



In January we definitely see a lot of cooler temperatures, and a sharp drop in temperatures toward the end of the month. The temperatures fluctuate quite a bit.

In February we see a lot of fluctuation of temperatures, a little bit more than in January. There is a larger drop in temperature towards the beginning of the month, and then some higher temperatures, in the 50’s, in the middle of the month.

In March the fluctuation in temperature seems a bit more dramatic. There are some really low temperatures in the beginning of the month and then some high temperatures in the middle of the month. The temperatures at the end of the month are forming a rising trend and we move into April.

In April the temperatures haven’t fluctuated as much as past months, but there are still some changes. There is a period of really high temperatures, and then a longer period of time with some cooler temperatures. The large spike in temperature around April 10^th is I believe the same time we had Severe Weather in our area.

Precipitation/Rainfall

Since the Metstation here on campus only measures precipitation in amount of Rainfall, there is no data available for January, since it did not rain because of such low temperatures!



In February there was one day where there was rainfall. If we look at both temperature and rainfall, we can see that the temperature was higher, or rising when the rainfall occurred.

When we look at rainfall in March, we see that there is a larger amount of rain, which is because of the higher temperatures. The majority of the rainfall that occurred, happened on days with warmer average temperatures.

April rainfall has significantly increased compared to March, February and January. The temperatures are higher for the most part, and instead of snowfall we are receiving rain as precipitation.

Wind Direction

The prevailing wind direction in January was West, followed by North West and West South West.

In February the prevailing wind direction was also West, like January. On the one day that there was rainfall, the wind was coming from the South East.



In March West is still a prevailing wind direction, but East is just as prevalent. With each month West is occurring less.

In April the West wind directions have slowed down quite a bit, and the leading Wind direction is East. This could be because of the increasing amount of low pressure systems that have moving across the country from the West, causing a lot of strange weather.

Summary

There are a number of trends that are prevalent in all of these graphs. With the temperature graphs, it is obvious that the temperature is rising with each month, albeit very slowly. When looking at the rainfall graphs, it is obvious that there is more and more rain with each month, due to the warmer temperatures. When comparing the wind direction graphs, there are less days with wind coming from the West with every month, and more days with wind coming from the East. There are a few anomalies that stick out, for example in the January graph there are a couple days where the temperature is extremely low compared to the rest of the days in the month. In February one week shows cold temperatures, and then the next week has the highest temperatures so far at that point. In the beginning of March there was an extremely cold day and then temperatures went back to 30’s, 40’s and 50’s shortly afterwards. In April on anomaly is around the 10^th or 11^th when temperatures reached the highest so far. This was when there was a lot of severe weather moving through our area due to a large trough in the jet stream. There were many tornadoes all over the state as a result of this.

Climograph

When we compare this data to a climograph of past months in Eau Claire, we see that the overall average temperatures have been normal, with a few anomalies here and there. There definitely hasn’t been as much rainfall, but that could be because of the snow and sleet we have gotten instead of rain this month and last month.

The average maximum temperature for April is only a little low (52 deg F, compared to 56-57), after having a couple days of temperatures in the 30’s and 40’s it seems as if it should be lower than that. We did have a couple days with high temperatures thrown in the mix as well though, which would raise the average a bit. Even though the weather we’ve been having recently has seemed strange, the data here shows that the temperatures are in the normal range. 

All graphs were created by me and belong to me. So don't steal them. Unless you're Professor Hupy.