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Cities with Nice Weather

jdonland.github.io

361–370 of 404 posts

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#361

Looking at the variance as a single datapoint doesn't capture temperature information very well. A single rare outlier data will make a city look bad even if most days are milkd. I hacked together a little program to try something different. My rule was to look at the daily average temperature for a bunch of cities on a single year. Then count up the number of "good temperature" days which I defined to be within 60°F…

Makes sense, San Diego and anything on Hawaii is hard to beat for 'comfort'. If you account for outdoor diversity then moving bit north to Silicon Valley makes sense. Warmer than San Francisco, with great skiing 4 hours away.

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#363

Looking at the variance as a single datapoint doesn't capture temperature information very well. A single rare outlier data will make a city look bad even if most days are milkd. I hacked together a little program to try something different. My rule was to look at the daily average temperature for a bunch of cities on a single year. Then count up the number of "good temperature" days which I defined to be within 60°F…

Can you please share the code? Or show the results for other continents.

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#365

Lower variability isn't a very good indicator of good weather at all. Humidity, median vs. average yearly temp, annual sunshine, and precipitation are more useful IMHO.

Humidity's the thing I have trouble finding good info about. Weather maps of humidity don't seem to do a good job of matching with what's actually perceived. But 85F and humid feels a hell of a lot worse than 95F and dry, so as far as Summer (and to some extent, Spring and Fall) characteristics go, I'd consider humidity by far the most important factor in whether Summer's basically pleasant, or completely miserable.

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#366

You're never going to find a perfect city. If it's not the weather that bugs you, it's something else. Don't spend your time trying to find the perfect fit. Rather, spend your time on accepting the world as it is and adapting to it. Then you'll be happy anywhere, anytime.

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Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#367

Looking at the variance as a single datapoint doesn't capture temperature information very well. A single rare outlier data will make a city look bad even if most days are milkd. I hacked together a little program to try something different. My rule was to look at the daily average temperature for a bunch of cities on a single year. Then count up the number of "good temperature" days which I defined to be within 60°F…

This seems related to the concept of the degree day. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_day

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#368
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally find SF Bay Area weather terrible, terrible. SF has the same weather year round and it is as follows: * Uncomfortably warm during the day * Uncomfortably cold during the night * A lot of unpredictable and long-running showers, rain and fog * A lot of cold wind year-round (especially summer, see below) I found the following quote by Mark Twain very accurate: > The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer…

It's amazing how one comment can have so much wrong with it. Long running showers? Downright hilarious. It doesn't rain a drop here 9 months out of the year. When it does, it barely qualifies as a sprinkle. You could walk outside for 20 minutes and not even get soaked. "Cold wind" is the breeze that makes every day feel amazing and fresh. >I found the following quote by Mark Twain very accurate: > > The coldest winte…

I lived in Berkeley for about 5 years and this was my experience. Some comments here argue SF Bay Area has different climates in different regions. I never realized this, but if it's true it might explain gaps in my comment (I still fully stand by it. No long running showers? Did we even live in the same place? Berkeley famously has days-long powder-like showers! I was absolutely sick of them when I was living there.)

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#369

Looking at the variance as a single datapoint doesn't capture temperature information very well. A single rare outlier data will make a city look bad even if most days are milkd. I hacked together a little program to try something different. My rule was to look at the daily average temperature for a bunch of cities on a single year. Then count up the number of "good temperature" days which I defined to be within 60°F…

This is interesting. It doesn't capture humidity / heat index, which would drop at least five cities (FL, SC) out of the top ten.

Yeah, if you really want to pick a city by weather, you'd want to take into account more than just temperature. Amount of sunlight is important too, from cloud cover and day length based on latitude.

Re: Cities with Nice Weather

#370

Looking at the variance as a single datapoint doesn't capture temperature information very well. A single rare outlier data will make a city look bad even if most days are milkd. I hacked together a little program to try something different. My rule was to look at the daily average temperature for a bunch of cities on a single year. Then count up the number of "good temperature" days which I defined to be within 60°F…

Can you please share the code? Or show the results for other continents.

The code is too hacky to share. Basically, I got a CSV of daily average temperatures for a bunch of cities. I discarded all the rows except for ones in the US and within a single year.

Then, for each city, I just counted the number of days whose temperature was within a range.

I had to do a little massaging because for some reason Washington DC was double counted in there.

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