Climate twins of Salem, SD
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: Howard Lake, MN
| Month | Salem | Howard Lake | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 23.6°F | 5.0°F | 0.55 in | 21.0°F | 2.0°F | 0.58 in |
| February | 29.0°F | 9.1°F | 0.74 in | 26.0°F | 5.8°F | 0.85 in |
| March | 42.6°F | 21.0°F | 1.36 in | 39.0°F | 19.3°F | 1.38 in |
| April | 56.5°F | 31.9°F | 3.29 in | 54.8°F | 33.8°F | 2.70 in |
| May | 69.7°F | 44.5°F | 3.80 in | 68.4°F | 47.1°F | 3.97 in |
| June | 79.0°F | 55.8°F | 3.92 in | 77.9°F | 58.1°F | 4.42 in |
| July | 83.3°F | 60.1°F | 2.97 in | 82.3°F | 62.0°F | 3.49 in |
| August | 81.4°F | 57.5°F | 3.35 in | 79.9°F | 59.5°F | 3.43 in |
| September | 74.0°F | 48.0°F | 3.03 in | 73.1°F | 50.6°F | 3.30 in |
| October | 58.8°F | 34.5°F | 2.20 in | 58.1°F | 37.1°F | 2.47 in |
| November | 42.3°F | 20.8°F | 1.07 in | 40.8°F | 23.4°F | 1.25 in |
| December | 27.7°F | 9.8°F | 0.67 in | 26.4°F | 10.9°F | 0.85 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 →