Weather Project
This project is an assignment in the Reporting with Data class at the University of Texas at Austin.
It is a study of this weather data: (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/cdo-web/)
Which days had the most rain, and how much rain are we talking about?
November 15th, 2001 saw the most rain at 7.55 in., and the second most rain nearly nine years later on September 7th, 2010, with 7.04 in. of rain.
What are the hottest and coldest days in history?
The coldest day in recorded history was January 31, 1949 at a record of -2 degrees Fahrenheit. This is the only negative temperature recorded. Most of these recorded dates took place before 1990, with exception to the freeze in 2021.
Most of these days take place after the year 2000, with the hottest year on record September 5, 2000 at 112 degrees Fahrenheit. This is closely followed behind with 112 degrees in 2011, and six other recorded dates of 110 degrees. It looks like the last few days of August in 2011 was one of the hottest, if not the hottest, recorded weekends for Camp Mabry.
Which years had the most days of 100+ temperature?
2019 had the most days of 100+ degree temperature with 20 days at 100 degrees. The maximum temperature of 2019 was 100 degrees Fahrenheit. This is closely followed by 1993, which had 19 days of 100 degree weather. In this dataset, 2011 had the most 100 degree days with a maximum temperature of 104 degrees.
Bonus
Total number of days within each year that had any snow.
The maximum number of days a year snow has fallen is one, according to the data reported. In 1949, 6.5 in. of snow fell, closely followed by 2021 with 5.4 in. (I don’t know if I did this correctly)
Summarizing with Math
Most total rainfall?
Which years had the most total rainfall and how much?
The most total precipitation occurred in 2015 with nearly 60 inches of rain in the whole year.
Which had the least?
According to the data, the year with the lowest total amount of rainfall was 1938, with a total of around 11 inches of rain. This makes a difference of nearly 50 inches of rain for the most and least total rainfalls in recorded history.
Average rainfall per month?
What is the average rainfall for each month across time? i.e. what is the average rain for January, then February, etc.
Get the total rain for each year/month, like 2.77 total inches in January 1939. Group by month and year then calculate the total rain. You should end up with columns for year, month and total rain.
Take that result and the Group by month and get the mean of the total rain so you have an average of all the January’s, etc.
May and October take the cake for most average rainfall with nearly four and five inches of rain on average, in respect to the data. The lowest average rainfall occurs in January and July, with only around 2 inches of rain, respectively.
Bonus
What years had the highest average yearly temperature?
This is defined as the mean of the “average yearly high temperature” and the “average yearly low temperature”.
The highest average temperature occurred in 1938, with an average of 85 degrees Fahrenheit for the whole year. Closely followed by 2011, with an average temperature of 84 degrees. Interestingly, 2022 and 2023 follow each other in succession, taking the third and fourth spots for average hottest years, respectively.
Average yearly low temperature:
The lowest record years all fall before the 21st century, with 1940 being the coldest average year at a tmin average of 54 degrees.