Climate twins of Volga, IA

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

Top match: Portage, WI

Month Volga Portage
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 26.3°F 6.3°F 1.25 in 26.1°F 9.9°F 1.44 in
February 31.0°F 10.1°F 1.28 in 30.6°F 13.2°F 1.41 in
March 44.4°F 22.3°F 2.03 in 42.4°F 24.0°F 2.18 in
April 58.6°F 34.1°F 4.00 in 55.7°F 35.8°F 4.15 in
May 69.7°F 45.7°F 4.65 in 68.2°F 47.8°F 4.58 in
June 79.3°F 56.0°F 6.67 in 77.9°F 57.9°F 5.61 in
July 82.2°F 60.0°F 4.60 in 81.6°F 61.6°F 4.51 in
August 80.5°F 57.6°F 3.92 in 79.9°F 59.4°F 4.12 in
September 74.1°F 48.5°F 3.63 in 72.6°F 50.7°F 3.56 in
October 61.5°F 36.6°F 2.92 in 59.3°F 39.0°F 2.86 in
November 45.3°F 24.5°F 2.28 in 44.2°F 28.3°F 2.22 in
December 32.2°F 14.3°F 1.57 in 31.8°F 17.1°F 1.68 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 →