Climate twins of Des Moines, WA
These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Des Moines'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: Des Moines vs its climate twin
Top match: Dayton, OR
| Month | Des Moines | Dayton | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 48.0°F | 37.7°F | 5.78 in | 47.3°F | 35.2°F | 5.51 in |
| February | 50.3°F | 37.7°F | 3.76 in | 51.0°F | 35.3°F | 4.08 in |
| March | 54.2°F | 39.9°F | 4.17 in | 55.7°F | 37.1°F | 4.17 in |
| April | 59.3°F | 43.3°F | 3.18 in | 60.5°F | 39.7°F | 2.99 in |
| May | 66.3°F | 48.7°F | 1.88 in | 68.0°F | 44.3°F | 1.99 in |
| June | 71.1°F | 53.0°F | 1.45 in | 73.7°F | 48.3°F | 1.32 in |
| July | 77.4°F | 56.8°F | 0.60 in | 82.7°F | 51.9°F | 0.25 in |
| August | 77.6°F | 57.2°F | 0.97 in | 83.1°F | 51.9°F | 0.36 in |
| September | 71.6°F | 53.6°F | 1.61 in | 77.0°F | 48.2°F | 1.30 in |
| October | 60.5°F | 47.0°F | 3.91 in | 64.0°F | 42.3°F | 3.48 in |
| November | 52.1°F | 40.9°F | 6.31 in | 52.6°F | 37.9°F | 5.74 in |
| December | 47.0°F | 37.1°F | 5.72 in | 46.5°F | 34.4°F | 6.45 in |
Cities that consider Des Moines their climate twin
These US cities have Des Moines in their top 3 most-similar list — meaning if you were to move from any of these places, Des Moines would feel familiar.
- Sherwood, OR (ranks Des Moines #2)
- Gladstone, OR (ranks Des Moines #2)
- Oregon City, OR (ranks Des Moines #2)
- West Linn, OR (ranks Des Moines #2)
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 →