Climate twins of Irene, SD

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

Top match: Milford, IA

Month Irene Milford
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 26.9°F 6.8°F 0.44 in 24.4°F 7.5°F 0.70 in
February 31.9°F 11.0°F 0.63 in 28.9°F 11.6°F 0.74 in
March 44.9°F 22.9°F 1.38 in 41.9°F 23.6°F 1.61 in
April 58.5°F 34.0°F 2.69 in 57.2°F 35.2°F 3.25 in
May 70.2°F 46.8°F 3.87 in 69.5°F 47.7°F 4.21 in
June 80.4°F 58.1°F 4.29 in 79.0°F 58.5°F 4.47 in
July 84.4°F 61.7°F 3.05 in 82.6°F 62.4°F 3.40 in
August 81.9°F 59.1°F 3.20 in 80.0°F 60.0°F 3.47 in
September 75.4°F 49.6°F 3.12 in 73.9°F 51.8°F 3.21 in
October 61.5°F 36.1°F 2.32 in 60.0°F 38.5°F 2.22 in
November 45.1°F 22.7°F 1.23 in 43.1°F 24.5°F 1.38 in
December 31.3°F 12.0°F 0.66 in 29.0°F 13.2°F 0.84 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 →