Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Feels Like Equivalency

Through October 28th, the daily average temperature in Fairbanks has been warmer than normal for 26 of the 28 days. One way to describe the actual temperature is to come up with an analog of which calendar day it most closely approximates. For example, the daily average temperature of 44.5 degrees yesterday would be expected to occur on September 17th. Therefore, a "feels like" equivalency of September 17th can be assigned to yesterday's climate. September 17th is 41 days earlier than October 28th. The following table shows the date, the actual temperature, and the feels like analog date. On average the analog date has been 15 days earlier that the actual date. So if it feels like the climate has been running about two weeks behind lately, you are correct.


2 comments:

  1. Interesting way of looking at it. It works well in Fairbanks where the normals change so much each week. In some climates it wouldn't work as well.
    -Matthew

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    1. Thanks for the comment Matthew. The "feels like" analogs work best for the transition seasons (fall and spring). A warm day in the winter can feel like 100 days off from the calendar date. I'll give it a try for more temperate climates as time permits.

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