Climate twins of Lincoln, ND

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

Top match: Harrold, SD

Month Lincoln Harrold
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 22.8°F 2.6°F 0.47 in 27.1°F 3.3°F 0.49 in
February 27.6°F 6.9°F 0.49 in 32.3°F 7.5°F 0.44 in
March 39.9°F 18.0°F 0.78 in 44.4°F 18.6°F 0.82 in
April 54.7°F 30.0°F 1.40 in 57.6°F 28.7°F 1.93 in
May 67.1°F 41.9°F 2.54 in 68.9°F 41.1°F 2.73 in
June 76.4°F 52.8°F 3.42 in 79.2°F 52.6°F 3.30 in
July 83.5°F 58.2°F 3.11 in 86.9°F 58.3°F 2.68 in
August 83.2°F 55.9°F 2.35 in 85.5°F 55.9°F 1.93 in
September 73.6°F 46.6°F 1.83 in 77.5°F 45.6°F 1.80 in
October 57.4°F 32.7°F 1.49 in 61.0°F 30.9°F 1.44 in
November 40.6°F 19.0°F 0.67 in 44.4°F 17.9°F 0.54 in
December 27.9°F 7.9°F 0.66 in 31.0°F 7.2°F 0.54 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 →