Baby it's cold(-er than usual) outside

February 25, 2010 7:53 AM

It's been colder and wetter than usual. I think. Help me find good, simple to understand historical weather data. I have Google Fail.

I feel like this winter in Atlanta has been more miserable than usual. Colder and wetter and for longer stretches. I'd like to reassure myself that I'm right. Where can I find good, simple weather data with current & recent conditions compared to averages and records presented in some non-chaotic fashion? I know this should be easy but my google-fu is failing me. Thanks!

posted by pointystick to science & nature (8 answers total)

There's free almanac data at Weather Underground.
posted by Jorus at 7:58 AM on February 25, 2010

Maybe at the Georgia State Climatology Office's January 2010 summary?
posted by pappy at 8:00 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's not super-pretty, but the NOAA has pretty comprehensive weather records available for most any place in the US, including Georgia. It does look like you've definitely had a wetter winter than usual so far this year: 5.75" of precipitation in November 2009 vs. 4.10" on average, 9.10" vs. 3.82" in December, and 5.38" vs. 5.03" in January.
posted by letourneau at 8:06 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

I came here to recommend Weather Underground as well. Unfortunately, I can't find any historical precipitation data, but they've got oodles of temperature data. Looking at the month of February, it looks like it's been 5-10 degrees below normal for most of the month (check out the graph that plots this month's temperatures vs. average highs and lows.) The first half of January was also well below normal, though you did have a warm spell from about the 15th to the 25th. November and December look like they were about average.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:11 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wolfram Alpha has some nice visualisation tools for weather in Atlanta that includes historic data.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 8:52 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's not merely your feelings, pointystick; this has been an exceptionally odd year for Georgia weather-wise.

Abnormally cold

Way-more-than-abnormally-wet
posted by rahnefan at 8:57 AM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Unfortunately, the Atlanta office doesn't have it, but the neighboring office in Columbia, SC has some good visualizations available for Augusta if you want to look a bit further out. Temps are mostly weighted to the blue side, and it also has a nice display of how much precipitation has been running compared to normal. You can also look at it month by month when you scroll down or pull up any year out of the last 10 to look at.
posted by weathergal at 7:22 PM on February 25, 2010 [1 favorite]

Thank you guys! I hadn't noticed that info on the (IMHO kind of overly busy) Weather Underground page. And Bora, Wolfram Alpha had cloud cover data which I was thinking of but totally forgot to put in my question.
Thanks, guys!
posted by pointystick at 7:45 AM on February 26, 2010