Climate twins of Washington, VA

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

Top match: Ridgeway, VA

Month Washington Ridgeway
High Low Precip High Low Precip
January 43.1°F 24.3°F 3.61 in 48.4°F 23.8°F 3.83 in
February 46.9°F 25.5°F 2.77 in 52.2°F 25.5°F 3.04 in
March 54.1°F 31.1°F 4.01 in 60.3°F 31.6°F 4.08 in
April 65.3°F 41.1°F 4.01 in 70.8°F 40.4°F 3.60 in
May 72.9°F 50.2°F 4.67 in 77.7°F 50.3°F 4.50 in
June 81.2°F 59.0°F 5.21 in 84.7°F 59.2°F 4.41 in
July 85.2°F 63.6°F 3.67 in 88.0°F 64.0°F 4.01 in
August 83.8°F 62.2°F 4.12 in 85.9°F 62.6°F 4.17 in
September 77.3°F 55.7°F 5.44 in 79.8°F 55.5°F 5.09 in
October 67.2°F 44.0°F 3.68 in 70.7°F 42.8°F 3.57 in
November 56.9°F 35.0°F 3.69 in 60.3°F 31.7°F 3.33 in
December 46.5°F 28.1°F 3.96 in 51.1°F 26.3°F 3.72 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 →