Spreadsheets and Climate Data

I enjoy creating spreadsheets. I likeseeing data organized, and I like to compare the numbers in ways thatgive me new understanding, or quantify what I may have felt like Ialready knew. I currently have two spreadsheets active “just forfun.” I will share one here, the other is a work in progress (I amconverting lights in my home to compact florescent lights to savepower, and I am quantifying how much power I am saving, this activityis limited by budget and availability). The spreadsheet I will shareis climate data for Taupo, Vancouver and Seattle.

The motivation for comparing climatedata for these three cities is that in the two months I have been inTaupo, it seems that the weather in Seattle and Vancouver isgenerally better than the weather I have experienced here. Thisobservation was met with a cacophony of arguments by my coworkersrejecting my sound observations of the weather. Some of theseco-workers have lived in Vancouver, or Cascadia. Some have onlyvisited, but they all agreed that Taupo has great weather, andSeattle and Vancouver have insufferable weather. The only thing thatcan be done in such situations is to get on Wikipedia, find someclimate data, and prove a large group of people wrong.

Taupo has terrible weather. Were thisan academic paper, it would be entitled; “An analysis of climatedata for Vancouver, Canada, Seattle, USA, and Taupo, New Zealand toassess favorability for habitation and bicycle commuting.” Afterthe location maps, the first figure that showed climate data would bereferred to as something like this: “While Seattle, the Vancouverairport (YVR), and the Vancouver central business district (CBD) haverainier months than Taupo, climate data suggest that Seattle andVancouver have either comparable climates to Taupo, or better, i.e.Taupo has terrible weather (Fig. 1).” I would normally want toleave it at that, enough said, but in order to celebrate howfantastically correct I am, I'll continue to belabor the point.

Figure 1:  Taupo has terrible weather.

First, a bit on how I went about this,other than copying data from Wikipedia. The value I initially wantedwas the number of days that it rains in each city, but it seemswhoever compiled the climate data for Wikipedia for Taupo lacked thisinformation. In fact, they seem to have lacked a great deal ofinformation. Owing to the fact that I am lazy, or do not reallycare, or something along those lines, I have not attempted to findmore complete data. I decided that three numbers could capture theclimate, average daily high by month, average daily low by month, andaverage daily precipitation by month. Today it occurred to me thataverage wind speed (while riding straight into strong winds) would bea useful addition, oh well. Next, I reorganized the months by wintersolstice, whereby month 1 is January in the Northern Hemisphere, andJuly in the Southern Hemisphere, and month 12 is December in theNorthern Hemisphere and June in the Southern Hemisphere. Finally, Iplotted a scatter plot with all of the data. Then, the fun began(the “fun” being realizing how right I was, the traditional funstarted with opening Open Office Calc).

All three cities have a similar amountof seasonality when it comes to temperature. Taupo tends to have thehighest average daily high. The daily low is closer, but frequentlylower in Taupo. For the bicycle commuter, this is an importantnumber. I rarely commute during the hottest part of the day, thoughI do often commute to work before the sun has heated the air, and thenight's cold is still lingering in the gullies along my route. Thus,for the bicycle commuter, the lowest lows are not made up for by thehighest highs. Further, for favorability for habitation, I wouldargue that while an outside temperature of 72 is probably ideal, anarrow temperature range is also very important. Given two cities,one with a high of 87 and low of 57, and one with a high of 65 andlow of 55, I would take 65 and 55. A third city with high of 90 andlow of 80 would also be more favorable than the first city. Theaverage temperature in the first city is an ideal 72, but at almost90 during the heat of the day residents will want to be wearingshorts, running fans or air conditioners, and drinking a coolbeverage on a shady veranda at noon. In the mornings, evenings andnights the temperature drops below sixty, and the residents will wantto wear long pants and a jacket, running heaters in their homes, andcuddling under blankets at night. This means that they have to carrya change of clothes to be comfortable, and pay to both heat and cooltheir homes. In the second and third cities, the residents plan on atemperature, grab a jacket, or an ice water, and go about their day. In this way, both Seattle and Vancouver have nicer temperatures thanTaupo.

Perhaps the most important number isprecipitation. Rain can be dressed for, much like any other weather. It can feel oppressive, but like anything else, a little priorplanning, and you can be reasonably comfortable in the rain. Vancouverites have to deal with the most rain overall, andSeattleites the least. In both of those cities, residents can expectmonths 1, 10, 11 and 12 to be rainier than in Taupo. Vancouveriteshave to deal with the rainiest month 2 as well (Seattle and Taupo tiefor second). For these four/five months, it is much rainier. TheSeattleite and Vancouverite must plan for rain most days. They will,accordingly, adjust their attire to a winter wardrobe. The residentof Taupo must have the wet and dry wardrobe ready throughout theyear! During months 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 (the majorityof the year) the Kiwi will endure more rain, and, like the other fivemonths, must have at the ready wet and dry weather clothing!

This post may comeacross as very negative, but it is not necessarily meant to be so. Idid not ever feel that the weather in Seattle or Vancouver was“terrible,” it was difficult to go from sun everyday, to cloudymany days, but it was not terrible. The use of the world terrible ismostly in response to my co-workers' indignant, “Vancouver (and/orSeattle) has terrible weather.” Thus, if the Pacific Northwest hasterrible weather, then it follows that Taupo has terrible weather,since it is worse here. Kiwis need not worry though, because theydefinitely have Ketchikan beat.