Climate twins of Shell Lake, WI
These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Shell Lake'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: Shell Lake vs its climate twin
Top match: Kimball, MN
| Month | Shell Lake | Kimball | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 20.7°F | 0.9°F | 0.79 in | 19.8°F | 2.6°F | 0.76 in |
| February | 26.4°F | 4.4°F | 0.80 in | 24.7°F | 6.3°F | 0.86 in |
| March | 39.5°F | 17.7°F | 1.43 in | 37.2°F | 18.7°F | 1.72 in |
| April | 53.7°F | 31.0°F | 2.77 in | 53.2°F | 31.9°F | 2.79 in |
| May | 66.7°F | 43.6°F | 4.08 in | 66.1°F | 45.0°F | 4.07 in |
| June | 76.1°F | 53.7°F | 4.23 in | 75.6°F | 55.2°F | 4.33 in |
| July | 80.1°F | 58.0°F | 3.99 in | 79.3°F | 59.9°F | 4.12 in |
| August | 78.3°F | 56.0°F | 3.90 in | 77.5°F | 57.3°F | 3.94 in |
| September | 69.6°F | 48.0°F | 3.61 in | 70.7°F | 48.9°F | 3.12 in |
| October | 55.6°F | 35.9°F | 3.16 in | 56.0°F | 36.9°F | 2.74 in |
| November | 39.0°F | 22.8°F | 1.66 in | 39.3°F | 22.6°F | 1.35 in |
| December | 25.7°F | 9.2°F | 1.19 in | 25.3°F | 10.7°F | 1.00 in |
Cities that consider Shell Lake their climate twin
These US cities have Shell Lake in their top 3 most-similar list — meaning if you were to move from any of these places, Shell Lake would feel familiar.
- Merrill, WI (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- Buckman, MN (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- Gilman, MN (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- Rice, MN (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- St. Stephen, MN (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- Baxter, MN (ranks Shell Lake #2)
- Brainerd, MN (ranks Shell Lake #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 →