Climate twins of Java, SD

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

Top match: Surrey, ND

Month Java Surrey
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 23.2°F 4.0°F 0.40 in 23.3°F 4.4°F 0.28 in
February 27.7°F 7.6°F 0.57 in 27.0°F 7.7°F 0.29 in
March 40.5°F 19.3°F 0.79 in 39.5°F 19.0°F 0.51 in
April 54.9°F 31.0°F 1.60 in 55.8°F 31.2°F 1.00 in
May 67.3°F 44.0°F 2.82 in 68.9°F 43.3°F 2.73 in
June 77.5°F 54.9°F 3.45 in 77.5°F 53.6°F 3.73 in
July 84.1°F 60.3°F 2.68 in 83.8°F 58.5°F 2.50 in
August 82.8°F 57.7°F 2.41 in 83.7°F 56.4°F 2.08 in
September 73.7°F 48.2°F 1.64 in 73.1°F 47.1°F 1.57 in
October 57.5°F 34.0°F 1.83 in 56.8°F 34.3°F 1.15 in
November 40.8°F 20.6°F 0.54 in 39.7°F 20.6°F 0.56 in
December 28.0°F 9.7°F 0.51 in 27.2°F 9.3°F 0.31 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 →