Climate Normals

A common misconception is that a climate normal describes the typical state of the atmosphere. Normal is simply a 30-year arithmetic mean, computed once per decade. The normals presented in the tables below use the observation period 1961-1990. These values are the benchmarks to be used throughout the 1990's and into the year 2000. New normals will be computed in 2001 and will use data from 1971-2000.

The data are organized by climate division.

• The normal temperatures presented are adjusted for the stations's time of observation as of 1990. The precipitation data are not adjusted for observation time.
• The monthly average temperatures are computed by averaging the corresponding maximum and minimum temperature normals. The annual temperature normals are calculated by taking the average of the 12 monthly normals. The annual precipitation normals are calculated by adding the 12 monthly normals. Maximum and minimum monthly values may have occurred in more than one year. The year indicated is the latest year that the value occured.

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URL: http://climate.umn.edu/doc/historical/normals.htm
Last modified: August 24, 1999