Climate twins of Ottumwa, IA
These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Ottumwa'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: Ottumwa vs its climate twin
Top match: Gravity, IA
| Month | Ottumwa | Gravity | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 32.0°F | 13.8°F | 1.01 in | 31.9°F | 12.4°F | 1.08 in |
| February | 36.8°F | 18.0°F | 1.41 in | 37.1°F | 16.3°F | 1.49 in |
| March | 50.2°F | 28.9°F | 2.24 in | 49.9°F | 27.6°F | 2.42 in |
| April | 62.8°F | 39.4°F | 3.75 in | 62.0°F | 38.2°F | 3.60 in |
| May | 72.9°F | 51.0°F | 5.03 in | 72.0°F | 50.5°F | 5.27 in |
| June | 82.2°F | 61.0°F | 5.38 in | 81.6°F | 61.1°F | 5.54 in |
| July | 85.7°F | 64.5°F | 3.87 in | 85.6°F | 65.4°F | 4.64 in |
| August | 84.0°F | 62.0°F | 4.44 in | 84.0°F | 63.1°F | 4.32 in |
| September | 77.3°F | 53.3°F | 3.50 in | 77.1°F | 53.7°F | 3.38 in |
| October | 64.2°F | 41.6°F | 2.81 in | 64.7°F | 40.9°F | 2.97 in |
| November | 49.7°F | 29.5°F | 2.09 in | 49.4°F | 28.5°F | 2.13 in |
| December | 37.2°F | 19.7°F | 1.44 in | 36.8°F | 18.4°F | 1.59 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 →