Climate twins of West Union, IA
These are the US cities whose 12-month climate pattern most closely matches West Union'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: West Union vs its climate twin
Top match: Portage, WI
| Month | West Union | Portage | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| High | Low | Precip | High | Low | Precip | |
| January | 24.5°F | 6.2°F | 1.22 in | 26.1°F | 9.9°F | 1.44 in |
| February | 29.0°F | 9.4°F | 1.21 in | 30.6°F | 13.2°F | 1.41 in |
| March | 42.3°F | 21.9°F | 2.06 in | 42.4°F | 24.0°F | 2.18 in |
| April | 57.1°F | 33.3°F | 4.13 in | 55.7°F | 35.8°F | 4.15 in |
| May | 69.1°F | 45.3°F | 5.05 in | 68.2°F | 47.8°F | 4.58 in |
| June | 78.5°F | 55.8°F | 5.91 in | 77.9°F | 57.9°F | 5.61 in |
| July | 81.6°F | 59.5°F | 5.32 in | 81.6°F | 61.6°F | 4.51 in |
| August | 79.8°F | 56.8°F | 4.13 in | 79.9°F | 59.4°F | 4.12 in |
| September | 73.5°F | 48.1°F | 3.87 in | 72.6°F | 50.7°F | 3.56 in |
| October | 60.3°F | 36.3°F | 2.90 in | 59.3°F | 39.0°F | 2.86 in |
| November | 43.9°F | 24.4°F | 2.06 in | 44.2°F | 28.3°F | 2.22 in |
| December | 30.5°F | 13.3°F | 1.65 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 →