Visualizing Weather Data
This dataset was provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and it gives a good insight into all types of weather data over time from 1895-2021. This dataset provided information on min/max/average temperature over time for all 50 states and drought and precipitation data for all 50 states. For these visualizations, the temperature data is being visualized in a number of different ways.
First, let's take a look at the average temperature over time using the visualization below.
Here the average temperature from 1895-2021 can clearly be seen. The divide between northern and southern states with regards to temperature is also pretty clear. However, from 1895 - 2021, the northern states have become warmer on average, even in such a small timespan. This is pretty good evidence of global warming. Additionally, there are definitely warmer and colder years on average from the visualization.
Next, most of our focus in these visualizations will be scoped to certain states. In this case, California is a great example of varying climates over the course of a year and over the course of many years. The following visualization shows the min and max temperatures for California over the period of 1895-2021.
Given the figure above, there is clear evidence of seasonality in the data. However, further exploratory data analysis is required. Additionally, there are outlying troughs in the data for the max temperature graph that indicate colder years while the peaks indicate years with higher max temperatures. In order to go further to understand those betters, an interactive visualization is required.
This visualization gives us a much better sense of the trends in temperature over time. There is a slightly positive trend in temperature and the outliers in the data can also be determined. In this case, the min temperature outliers in 1937 and 1949 are interesting to note. On the other hand, the outliers in the max temperature plot are less obvious, but 1931 certainly seems out of place. Further exploratory data analysis must be done to understand the time series better.