DAYTON - Hey there, it’s Stormcenter 7 Meteorologist Ryan Marando here! I did a lot of crunching the numbers Wednesday afternoon to try to find a pattern between cool Augusts and cold/snowy winters. So, is there really any correlation between the two? Here’s my hectic excel sheet showing my listing of the numbers!
Firstly, let me set the stage for how I got the data. I took the 13 years since 2000 that we had a below average month of August. That included, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2023. Then, I compared these August’s to their subsequent average winter temperature over that season (December, January, and February high temperatures). I also included a second comparison with the same August temperatures from the 13 years, to the amount of snowfall we had received that winter during the same three months as before.
Then I ran a correlation in Excel. This means I ran sort of a comparison between the two options. One correlation for August temperatures versus winter season temperatures and another for August temperatures versus winter season snowfall totals. The important detail is this correlation will give us a number between -1 to 1. When the number is close to -1, that means the data is negatively correlated or that when August temperatures go down, winter temperatures would go up. A 1, is opposite: when August temperatures go down, so would winter temperatures. This is what we would be looking for, a number near 1. A 0 for the correlation would means there’s very little impact from the data groups meaning one doesn’t affect the other.
[DOWNLOAD: Free Storm Center 7 Weather app for alerts as news breaks]
Here’s what I came up with firstly with below average August temperatures and its winter season’s temperatures.
The data points are everywhere! The bottom axis of the graphic is the August average high temperatures. The vertical axis is the average winter season temperature. And each data point is 1 year. The correlation came out to a whopping 0.06. That’s close to zero... meaning very little correlation. And notice the horizontal white line, we would want that to start in the bottom left and move to the bottom right if there were to be big impacts from August temperatures to winter temperatures.
So let’s also check the snowfall totals, but not much changes! In fact, the correlation is worse at 0.04! The bottom axis of the graphic is the August average high temperatures again. The vertical axis is the winter season snowfall totals. And each data point is 1 year. Once again the data points scatter everywhere showing that it doesn’t matter what the August temperatures are for the amount of snowfall we get in a season.
[WATCH Storm Center 7 Weather on the following devices]
So bottom line no, below average August temperatures does not necessarily mean we will get a cold, snowy winter. Stormcenter 7 will keep you posted as we get closer to the season!
