Weather Normals Explorer

Normals are the baseline: the long-term average seasonal cycle for each variable, smoothed across decades. They’re what you compare against when you want to know whether a given day or month is unusual.

Temperature and Moisture

Air temperature, humidity, and cloud normals define the core background state that most anomaly views are measured against.

Degree Days

Degree-day normals turn temperature into accumulated load: biological growth, heating demand, and cooling demand.

Precipitation and Snow

Total moisture is useful, but separating rain, snow, and snowpack makes the seasonal structure much clearer.

Phase and Total

Snowpack and Melt

Snow depth depends on accumulation, compaction, and thaw, so the snowpack views are grouped separately from simple snowfall totals.

Ocean

Sea-surface temperature changes more slowly than air temperature, so the annual cycle peaks later and smooths out short-lived weather noise.

Wave Height

Significant wave height from the NOAA WaveWatch III model captures the open-ocean swell climate at each coastal city. Like SST, the annual cycle peaks later than inland weather and smooths out day-to-day variation.

Inland Water Levels

Water-level data is station-specific and monthly rather than daily, but it still fits here better than on a separate page because it is fundamentally a baseline climatology view.

Wind and Atmospheric Conditions

Wind, pressure, and visibility capture the broader background state of the atmosphere rather than just heat or moisture.