Climate twins of Salem, WV
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: Mount Sterling, KY
| Month | Salem | Mount Sterling | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 40.9°F | 20.8°F | 3.69 in | 41.8°F | 21.6°F | 3.52 in |
| February | 44.4°F | 22.4°F | 3.51 in | 45.6°F | 23.5°F | 3.66 in |
| March | 54.0°F | 28.9°F | 4.25 in | 55.7°F | 30.5°F | 4.36 in |
| April | 67.0°F | 38.0°F | 3.89 in | 66.8°F | 39.8°F | 4.40 in |
| May | 75.2°F | 48.5°F | 5.09 in | 75.6°F | 50.6°F | 4.53 in |
| June | 81.7°F | 57.6°F | 4.93 in | 83.4°F | 59.0°F | 4.80 in |
| July | 84.8°F | 62.1°F | 5.73 in | 86.5°F | 63.1°F | 5.38 in |
| August | 84.1°F | 60.9°F | 3.66 in | 85.7°F | 60.6°F | 3.36 in |
| September | 79.0°F | 53.7°F | 3.68 in | 80.1°F | 53.1°F | 3.61 in |
| October | 67.9°F | 41.1°F | 3.47 in | 68.5°F | 41.6°F | 3.22 in |
| November | 55.6°F | 30.9°F | 3.21 in | 55.9°F | 31.3°F | 3.38 in |
| December | 45.3°F | 25.7°F | 3.98 in | 45.4°F | 25.0°F | 4.28 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.
- Fleming-Neon, KY (ranks Salem #2)
- Whitesburg, KY (ranks Salem #2)
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 →