Climate twins of Wadena, IA

These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches Wadena'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.

Rank 1 closest
Thompson, IA
similarity distance: 0.895 (lower = more similar)
Rank 2 closest
Portage, WI
similarity distance: 0.943 (lower = more similar)
Rank 3 closest
Shorewood Hills, WI
similarity distance: 0.956 (lower = more similar)

Side-by-side: Wadena vs its climate twin

Top match: Thompson, IA

Month Wadena Thompson
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 24.5°F 6.2°F 1.22 in 22.7°F 5.6°F 1.15 in
February 29.0°F 9.4°F 1.21 in 27.1°F 9.5°F 1.33 in
March 42.3°F 21.9°F 2.06 in 40.4°F 22.5°F 1.94 in
April 57.1°F 33.3°F 4.13 in 56.3°F 34.2°F 3.89 in
May 69.1°F 45.3°F 5.05 in 68.5°F 47.2°F 4.83 in
June 78.5°F 55.8°F 5.91 in 78.1°F 58.0°F 5.51 in
July 81.6°F 59.5°F 5.32 in 81.3°F 61.5°F 4.60 in
August 79.8°F 56.8°F 4.13 in 79.0°F 58.7°F 3.79 in
September 73.5°F 48.1°F 3.87 in 73.0°F 50.0°F 3.46 in
October 60.3°F 36.3°F 2.90 in 59.5°F 37.3°F 2.58 in
November 43.9°F 24.4°F 2.06 in 42.5°F 24.3°F 1.61 in
December 30.5°F 13.3°F 1.65 in 28.5°F 12.9°F 1.23 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 →