Climate twins of Bismarck, ND

These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Bismarck's. Each "twin" must be at least 140 miles away to avoid trivial near-neighbor matches. Similarity is computed across all 24 monthly metrics (12 average temperatures + 12 average precipitations), normalized so temperature and precipitation contribute equally.

Side-by-side: Bismarck vs its climate twin

Top match: Edgeley, ND

Month Bismarck Edgeley
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 22.1°F 3.8°F 0.54 in 19.9°F 3.7°F 0.61 in
February 27.1°F 6.7°F 0.52 in 25.2°F 7.0°F 0.41 in
March 39.7°F 17.8°F 0.92 in 37.1°F 19.2°F 0.92 in
April 53.8°F 29.4°F 1.63 in 53.2°F 31.6°F 1.43 in
May 66.4°F 42.5°F 2.56 in 66.7°F 44.3°F 3.03 in
June 75.6°F 52.5°F 3.32 in 75.7°F 55.0°F 3.35 in
July 81.5°F 58.3°F 3.18 in 81.0°F 59.1°F 3.28 in
August 80.1°F 55.6°F 2.70 in 80.2°F 56.7°F 2.79 in
September 71.3°F 46.1°F 1.92 in 71.4°F 47.4°F 2.50 in
October 55.6°F 33.5°F 1.58 in 55.9°F 34.7°F 1.71 in
November 39.6°F 19.8°F 0.74 in 38.9°F 21.0°F 0.66 in
December 26.9°F 9.5°F 0.74 in 25.5°F 9.7°F 0.46 in

Cities that consider Bismarck their climate twin

These US cities have Bismarck in their top 3 most-similar list — meaning if you were to move from any of these places, Bismarck would feel familiar.

How this is computed

Each city is represented by a 24-dimensional vector: 12 monthly average temperatures and 12 monthly average precipitations. Each dimension is z-score normalized across the population of US cities, so that temperature variance and precipitation variance contribute proportionally. Distance between cities is Euclidean. We filter out cities within 2° latitude/longitude (~140 miles) so that "twins" mean climatically similar but geographically distinct — not just the neighboring town. Full methodology →