PlainClimate tool
Compare two climate records
Put two named, station-mapped location records side by side using the same NOAA 1991-2020 climate-normal dataset. Month-by-month temperatures, national comfort rank, and records with the most similar climate profile. Labels may name municipalities, airports, campuses, refuges, or other station locations. This is a comparison of long-run averages, not a weather forecast or a recommendation.
Use a named location and state abbreviation, such as "Denver, CO." The tool only compares records found in PlainClimate's station-mapped NOAA-normalized dataset.
About this tool
Frequently asked questions
- What data does the climate-record comparison use?
- Every figure comes from NOAA's U.S. Climate Normals, 1991-2020 release. The normals represent 30-year averages calculated by NOAA NCEI from thousands of weather stations across the country. PlainClimate maps station records to named locations, including municipalities as well as airports, campuses, refuges, and other station labels. The figures are NOAA station observations, not editor-entered estimates or a municipal directory.
- What is the Comfort Score and how is it calculated?
- The PlainClimate Comfort Score (0-100) is a derived index that weights annual temperature mildness, total precipitation, snowfall burden, and growing-season length. It is not an official NOAA metric. Records with missing NOAA data for two or more of those inputs show N/A rather than a score built from estimated values. Read the full formula and limits on the methodology page.
- What does the national comfort rank show?
- The percentile shows what share of the roughly 6,900 U.S. location records in PlainClimate's dataset score lower on the derived Comfort Score. A record at the 80th percentile scores higher on this index than 80% of records in the database. The in-state rank shows where it falls among records in its own state.
- How are the "similar climate" records chosen?
- Similar records are found by computing a weighted distance between each record's annual average temperature and Comfort Score. Records whose combination of temperature and derived comfort is closest to the selected record appear first. This is not an official climate-classification system; it is a convenience for finding named locations with roughly comparable climate profiles.
- What does the month-by-month table show?
- The monthly table shows the average temperature and total precipitation for each calendar month from the NOAA 1991-2020 normals for each selected record. Values are station averages; local microclimates, elevation, and urban heat-island effects can make individual neighborhoods differ. Missing values are shown as N/A rather than estimated.