How's the Weather Up There?

Author: Pedro Henrique Cintra

For this visualization I relied on the historical daily data from weather stations across the world, available at https://www.wunderground.com/. We all know that the southern and northern hemispheres have opposite seasons, but is there a way of seeing it? Here we look at how latitudes and vegetation influences the yearly patterns of weather on a given location. If we look at the upper charts, we see a clear pattern of warmer days in July and August and colder days during December and January, that corresponds to Fresno, a city in California, with a latitude about 36 degrees north. If we go down just a little, to 24 degrees north, and look at Medina, in Saudi Arabia we see the same pattern. However, notice how the warmer period is much warmer this time, and looking at the right to the humidity, we notice a much lower daily humidity. That happens because although Medina is in the Northern hemisphere, it is located in the middle of the Arabian desert. Following our path, we reach Manaus, in Brazil, located near the equator line and in the heart of the Amazon Rainforest. The result is a daily temperature with almost no periodic behavior throughout the year, and a constantly high humidity. Finally, we get to Buenos Aires, in Argentina, at 34 degrees south. Notice how the warmer and colder seasons are reversed now, and daily humidities present a big amplitude.