Climate twins of Salem, IL
These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Salem'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: Salem vs its climate twin
Top match: Washington, MO
| Month | Salem | Washington | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 38.4°F | 20.8°F | 3.07 in | 39.9°F | 20.2°F | 2.52 in |
| February | 43.4°F | 24.0°F | 2.56 in | 45.4°F | 23.4°F | 2.52 in |
| March | 54.0°F | 33.0°F | 3.73 in | 55.8°F | 32.1°F | 3.66 in |
| April | 66.2°F | 43.7°F | 4.69 in | 67.3°F | 42.8°F | 4.57 in |
| May | 75.7°F | 54.6°F | 4.99 in | 75.8°F | 54.2°F | 5.30 in |
| June | 84.5°F | 63.8°F | 5.08 in | 83.8°F | 63.6°F | 4.20 in |
| July | 87.8°F | 67.4°F | 4.07 in | 88.3°F | 67.0°F | 4.19 in |
| August | 86.6°F | 65.2°F | 3.80 in | 86.9°F | 64.9°F | 3.75 in |
| September | 80.4°F | 56.9°F | 3.54 in | 79.5°F | 55.9°F | 3.71 in |
| October | 68.7°F | 45.0°F | 3.44 in | 68.9°F | 43.6°F | 3.37 in |
| November | 54.3°F | 34.0°F | 3.99 in | 55.3°F | 32.8°F | 3.67 in |
| December | 42.8°F | 25.6°F | 2.93 in | 44.5°F | 24.3°F | 2.64 in |
Cities that consider Salem their climate twin
These US cities have Salem in their top 3 most-similar list — meaning if you were to move from any of these places, Salem would feel familiar.
- Plainfield, IN (ranks Salem #1)
- Mooresville, IN (ranks Salem #1)
- Millhousen, IN (ranks Salem #1)
- Napoleon, IN (ranks Salem #2)
- New Point, IN (ranks Salem #2)
- Greensburg, IN (ranks Salem #1)
- St. Paul, IN (ranks Salem #1)
- Hartsville, IN (ranks Salem #1)
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 →