When comparing winters between cities, do you judge the high temp or low temp?

[MeteoFlan]

Originally Posted by nei

Except the low is usually around sunrise, so it's a good indicator of temperatures after sunrise during the day. Depending on your work schedule, if you work indoors you're more likely to be outside in the morning than midday.

Yeah it is but I work freelance and on the computer so I can do hours whenever I want. Then I can go outside during the daytime for walks etc...

For people who work 9-5 hours it would be worse. Not for me though.

[alex985]

Originally Posted by nei

Ithaca's climate page is a good source. Check out March 2015:

The Ithaca Climate Page :: Northeast Regional Climate Center

March 10 had a mean temperature of 30°F with a high of 45°F, snowmelt was small. The big snowmelt were all correlated with days at least 4-5°F warmer than freezing. There were no low diurnal range days to compare in March, but December 2014 had some with means near freezing. December 2014 showed a lot of melt with daily means a few degrees above freezing a high of only 36°F. But low diurnal range often means rain or at least drizzle, so there's no way to really compare. Compaction also confuses things.

Wow, I'm shocked of how cold March was. A 34/14 average? That's not too far off a typical January.


Yeah, I think hours spent below freezing and humidity levels matter more for snowmelt. During winter the warmest part of the day doesn't last that long anyway so I don't think daytime highs mean much. I've also read snow melts faster with higher humidity than with low humidity, but I'm not too sure how true that is.

[MeteoFlan]

Originally Posted by alex985

Yes that does make sense I'm not a big fan of low diurnal ranges either. I actually like high diurnal ranges for the opposite reason as you, I do most of my physical exercise and workouts during evenings/nights. It cools off faster on such days and it's more pleasant for me.


I don't like cloudy/drizzly weather too much either. My ideal range is about 15-20 F during winter and 25-30 F in summer.

I would prefer a 45/25 day over a 40/30 day as well.

If Buxton's climate was like the right hand averages I did I would find it much more interesting and we would be able to get some warmth in summer every now and then, unlike in reality. The cooler nights wouldn't be great but I would tolerate that just to have the warmer days.

So I did that for 2014 I'm also going to do it for the other years I've recorded in Buxton. In the 2014 example we reached 29 degrees in July whereas it only reached 25 in reality.

[Joe90]

It depends on the climate. With somewhere like Siberia, it doesn't really matter either way -it's just plain cold.

Somewhere like the UK has similar winter lows to my climate, so I will look to the greatest difference - the maximum temperature.