Climate twins of Sumter, SC

These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Sumter'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: Sumter vs its climate twin

Top match: Elizabeth City, NC

Month Sumter Elizabeth City
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 55.1°F 32.8°F 3.78 in 53.2°F 33.6°F 3.64 in
February 58.5°F 35.0°F 3.47 in 56.2°F 34.7°F 3.29 in
March 66.3°F 40.9°F 3.67 in 63.2°F 41.1°F 4.17 in
April 74.7°F 49.6°F 3.40 in 72.2°F 50.4°F 3.47 in
May 81.2°F 57.8°F 3.78 in 78.9°F 58.9°F 4.07 in
June 87.3°F 65.9°F 5.05 in 85.8°F 68.4°F 4.49 in
July 90.2°F 69.6°F 5.75 in 88.9°F 72.5°F 5.93 in
August 88.5°F 68.4°F 4.92 in 87.3°F 70.9°F 5.91 in
September 83.4°F 62.9°F 4.36 in 82.2°F 66.0°F 5.32 in
October 74.4°F 50.9°F 3.88 in 74.1°F 54.7°F 3.70 in
November 64.8°F 40.0°F 2.94 in 64.0°F 43.7°F 3.39 in
December 57.4°F 35.0°F 3.83 in 56.4°F 37.6°F 3.88 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 →