Climate twins of Lakota, IA

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

Top match: Menomonie, WI

Month Lakota Menomonie
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 21.9°F 4.5°F 0.87 in 24.0°F 4.5°F 0.94 in
February 26.9°F 8.1°F 0.93 in 29.4°F 7.3°F 1.08 in
March 39.7°F 21.4°F 1.76 in 41.9°F 19.3°F 1.97 in
April 55.4°F 32.5°F 3.43 in 56.4°F 32.3°F 2.96 in
May 67.7°F 45.6°F 4.60 in 68.2°F 44.4°F 4.53 in
June 77.8°F 56.9°F 4.65 in 77.9°F 54.8°F 5.14 in
July 80.8°F 59.8°F 4.16 in 82.0°F 59.2°F 4.02 in
August 78.3°F 57.5°F 4.11 in 79.9°F 56.7°F 4.02 in
September 72.6°F 48.0°F 3.21 in 72.2°F 48.2°F 3.63 in
October 58.7°F 35.2°F 2.52 in 58.9°F 36.0°F 2.74 in
November 41.9°F 22.1°F 1.46 in 42.7°F 23.6°F 1.82 in
December 27.6°F 11.2°F 1.17 in 29.2°F 12.0°F 1.34 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 →