Data Analysis



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These 2 graphs are showing the average temperature and precipitation patterns for the month of March over the past 110 years.  The average indicated here for temperature that of a rising trend, whereas the precipitation is indicating a decreasing trend.  These factors in combination with each other, should they continue steadily for the next several hundred years would affect vegetation and fertility of the land.  If water were to continue decreasing and temperature increasing that sounds a recipe for a hot and dry desert in a few hundred years.  Archaeologists have found evidence that Egypt was once received heavy rainfall or was at one point under water because the spynx shows signs of water erosion, the central US several million years ago was the bed of shallow sea because we have found fossils of sea shells in the rock.  So the climate shifting around the planet has happened before and will continue to happen, the problem to determine whether it is our fault or not.

Madison


Milwaukee




The previous charts are from the Madison and Milwaukee areas, showing average temperature and rainfall throughout the year.  They have a typical sin wave pattern, associated with the summer months for both increase and rain and increase in temperature, with June-August being the typically highest months.




These two charts above are from the Data Archive of the UWEC Metstation for average temperature and rainfall this year to date.  For January and February the temperature was average for this time of year, March and April however are not typical of past years.  The average for March is typically around 35F, this year the average for March was 49F, well above the average for this time of year.  The average temperature for April is about 46F and the average this year was 48F so it wasn't to crazy during April but March was insane.  When we take a look at the rainfall this year we started out in January well below average at 0.1" of rainfall, the average being 0.8", thats 8x lower than the average year for the month of January.  February was slightly under the average by about 0.1" so not too bad there.  We are on track to be way under for precipitation this year however, the average for March is 1.7" and this year was an entire inch less than average, into April the average is 2.75"and this year for April came in at 1.3".  My predictions for the summer at this rate is going to be very hot and extremely dry.  So far into May the rainfall thus far is about 0.4", being about 1/4 the way through the month that sets us up to be getting about 1.5" of rainfall for this month, which dangerously below the average of almost 3.5" of rainfall.  


















These charts are of the surrounding areas, which show average temperatures and rainfall for the areas back about 100 years, excluding Wasau.  The show the typical pattern of higher temperatures during the summer months and shows the that the average rainfall for these areas is around 30".  The following link is for the St Paul area and shows average temperature and rainfall, and the second link for the month of April.  The information here shows that for April rainfall was just at about the typical monthly average, so the surrounding areas have gotten more precipitation than the Eau Claire area.