Assessing Temperatures of a Region over Time

Weld County, CO monthly max and average temperatures from 2000 - 2007.

Data Choice

I grew up in Weld County, Colorado and I have a memory of my mother never letting us use our pool unless it was over 85 degrees Fahrenheit. As I have gotten older, I was always curious as to her reason why, my assumption being that we would use the pool more infrequently. I want to investigate my hypothesis by looking at the temperature for the years we had a pool at our home. This will help me to get an initial glance at how likely the temperature throughout the year would be above 85° F.

Data at a Glance

I lived in Greeley, CO which is in Weld County and I was able to pull data from the ncei website to get monthly values for the the monthly max temperature and avg temperatures from 2000 - 2007.

Results

As we are only getting a monthly view with this dataset, we see that for most summer months, there was at least one day over 85 degrees. We also see that the average temperature for each month tells a different story. We now know that on average for each month, it was never even over 80 degrees. I believe my hypothesis to be correct, that my mother chose a temperature that it would hit every so often, but also would not happen as frequently.

Data Citation

NOAA National Centers for Environmental information, Climate at a Glance: County Time Series, published October 2023, retrieved on October 10, 2023 from https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/climate-at-a-glance/county/time-series