Climate twins of Crystal Lake, IA

These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Crystal Lake'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: Crystal Lake vs its climate twin

Top match: Poynette, WI

Month Crystal Lake Poynette
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 23.7°F 6.3°F 0.77 in 26.4°F 8.7°F 1.24 in
February 27.9°F 10.3°F 1.48 in 30.7°F 12.0°F 1.40 in
March 41.1°F 22.7°F 2.14 in 42.8°F 23.1°F 1.98 in
April 56.5°F 34.3°F 3.88 in 56.6°F 34.2°F 3.74 in
May 69.1°F 47.6°F 4.48 in 69.0°F 45.9°F 4.24 in
June 79.3°F 58.4°F 5.41 in 78.7°F 56.2°F 5.14 in
July 82.4°F 62.0°F 4.24 in 82.2°F 59.8°F 4.17 in
August 79.5°F 59.2°F 3.57 in 80.2°F 57.8°F 3.80 in
September 73.4°F 50.3°F 3.21 in 73.4°F 49.4°F 3.34 in
October 59.7°F 37.4°F 2.56 in 60.4°F 37.8°F 2.78 in
November 43.2°F 24.7°F 1.43 in 44.4°F 26.4°F 2.23 in
December 29.8°F 12.9°F 1.13 in 31.9°F 15.7°F 1.45 in

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 →