Climate Report Addendum

by Jason Sorens

This report serves as an addendum to Jan Helfeld's state climates report. It includes data from an additional source and some new data that are perhaps more interesting as a measure of extreme-ness of temperatures.

The first section includes data on all the cities in the state climate report from worldclimate.com, apparently the most comprehensive and professional climate site on the Internet. These data are for different elevations for Western states from the elevations used for the data presented in Jan's report. The data on worldclimate.com are the same for Lewes-Reheboth Beach, Concord, Burlington, Fargo, Lewiston, Cheyenne, and Anchorage; data for different elevations were available for Billings and Boise. Thus these two reports combined give a more comprehensive feel for the Western data.

The second part of this addendum presents annual data on "Heating Degree Days" and "Cooling Degree Days" from the same website. "Heating Degree Days" are "the cumulative number of degrees in a month or year by which the mean temperature falls below 18.3?C/65?F." "Cooling Degree Days" are "the cumulative number of degrees in a month or year by which the mean temperature is above 18.3?C/65?F." Thus, Heating Degree Days measure the amount of cold in a year, while Cooling Degree Days measure the amount of heat. A lower score on both measures is better, indicating a mild climate.

Billings, Montana (Billings water plant, 3097 ft. above sea level; a few degrees warmer highs than original report due to lower elevation, & less precipitation in winter)

Boise, Idaho (Lucky Peak Dam, 2838 ft. above sea level; more precipitation than at airport data used for interpretation in previous report)

Heating & Cooling Degree Days

August 27, 2002

The views expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the Free State Project, its Officers, or Directors.