This article uses climographs to explain the crazy weather we’ve been having.
Introduction
The weather’s been so weird lately! This heat doesn’t feel normal! We keep hearing people say things like that.
I need things to be more steady and predictable. When it comes to the weather, the best way to find that is by looking at climates.
Climate
Climate is like the usual pattern of weather (what the air is like at a certain time and place) in a location over a whole year. So, if I want to find something stable about the weather, I should look at the climate.
But this year feels different. It’s been so hot and dry. Other years haven’t been like this. Maybe I need to look at weather information from more than just one year. Where can I find that? I know! In charts called climographs.
Climographs
Climographs are special charts that show the temperature and rainfall of a place throughout the year. To understand the climate of a place, scientists usually collect weather data for at least 15 years.
How is a Climograph Made?
A climograph has three main parts: a horizontal line that shows the months of the year, and two vertical lines that show the temperature and rainfall amounts.
Let’s start making one.
Steps
- First, we need to pick a place we want to study and find its average yearly temperatures and rainfall. Let’s choose Valladolid, Spain. I’m going to use information from the website CLIMATE-DATA.ORG that was collected over 20 years (1991-2021).
- I select the continent (Europe), look for Spain, and then find Valladolid.
- I put the data into a table.
| Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| T (°C) | 4 | 4.9 | 7.9 | 10.5 | 14.7 | 19.9 | 22.4 | 22.3 | 18.5 | 13.5 | 7.3 | 4.5 |
| P (mm) | 47 | 35 | 41 | 53 | 52 | 31 | 18 | 15 | 31 | 61 | 56 | 50 |
- Temperatures are in degrees Celsius (°C), and rainfall is in millimeters (mm). On the left vertical line, I’ll mark the rainfall amounts going up by 50s. On the right vertical line, I’ll mark the temperatures going up by 5s. (These numbers can change depending on the place).
- I draw the basic chart without any data yet.
- I use a red line to show the temperatures for each month.
- I use blue bars to show the rainfall for each month.
Conclusions
What can we learn from this?
- Valladolid is in a temperate climate zone, which is in the middle latitudes. These areas usually have low air pressure and winds that come from the west. That’s why the weather can change (four seasons) and why most of the weather systems that affect it come from the west (like the Azores High).
- The temperature range (the difference between the hottest and coldest months) is 18.4°C. The average yearly temperature is 12.5°C, and the total yearly rainfall is 490 mm.
- With all this information, we can say that Valladolid has a continental Mediterranean climate. This is because of where it is, surrounded by mountains that stop the influence of the sea from reaching it.
- So, the climograph has helped me understand the climate of Valladolid in a way that is reliable, organized, and stable.
