Geog255 Asn 2 Precip data

Geography 255.3 – Assignment 2 2021-02-01 Retrieving and interpreting precipitation data https://climate.weather.gc.ca/historical_data/search_historic_data_e.html 1. Calculate the total annual precipitation and max daily precipitation for each of the stations. [6 marks] Station Name VICTORIA INTL A CALGARY INTL A OTTAWA INTL A Longitude (x) -123.43 -114.01 -75.67 Latitude (y) 48.65 51.12 45.32 Total Rain (mm) Total Snow (cm) Total Precip (mm) Total Rain (mm) Total Snow (cm) Total Precip (mm) Total Rain (mm) Total Snow (cm) Total Precip (mm) Max Daily 34.0 2.5 -- 27.0 32.8 -- 61.4 14.6 -- Total Annual 854.3 2.5 859.6 244.0 213.8 424.8 807.3 247.4 993.4 % of annual 99.4% 0.3% -- 57.4% 50.3% -- 81.3% 24.9% -- Std dev (σ) -- -- 5.16 -- -- 2.99 -- -- 6.20 3. Calculate the percentage of annual precipitation that falls as snow at each station. [3 marks] Station Annual Snow (% of Annual Precip) YYJ 0.3 YYC 50.3 YOW 24.9 4. Based on what you’ve learned in Questions 1 – 3, compare/contrast the precipitation regimes (approximately ½ page, single spaced). [10 marks] Upon review, there are elements that are surprising when contrasted between stations for 2018, but it is mostly predictable with any prior knowledge of those areas. It would be interesting to expand the data to more years for year-over-year analysis. Victoria/Calgary: Victoria receives virtually twice the precipitation as Calgary, but nearly none of Victoria’s precipitation is snow while half of Calgary’s precipitation is snow. This isn’t surprising as Victoria is a coastal city and Calgary is in the western prairies. Aside from two heavy days in June and October, Calgary could be considered arid – especially in the in December and January, Calgary’s winter. While Calgary is experiencing its cold, dry winter (along with other prairie towns, brrr), Victoria is facing peak rain periods. Even though the rate undulates over the year, Calgary’s precipitation is more consistent, with standard deviation of ~3mm, but Victoria is noticeably variable (σ = 5.16mm). Calgary gets less than a third of the rain that Victoria sees. Calgary/Ottawa: These two couldn’t be more different in terms of annual precipitation. Like Victoria, Ottawa also sees twice as much precipitation as Calgary - in fact over two and a third times more than Calgary (233.9%). Ottawa has the least consistent rate of precipitation at 6.2mm standard deviation. What’s most surprising is that, while Calgary still holds the most snow per precipitation rate (half of precipitation is snow in Calgary compared to a quarter in Ottawa), YOW got more total snow than YYC, which edged Ottawa’s total precipitation to the lead of the three cities. Ottawa/Victoria: These are the regions that surprised me on comparison. Having never visited Ottawa, I presumed Victoria received more rainfall, but that isn’t the case in any aspect. Ottawa had five days with more than 30mm of precipitation, (likely as rain as it was summer days and over 80% of YOW’s precipitation is rainfall) but Victoria saw only 3 similar events. Of note though is the maximum daily rainfall was 61.4mm in Ottawa, a significantly heavy rain compared to the maximums of the other two cities, which are also surprisingly close. The YYJ and YOW have inverted “rainy” seasons. Ottawa gets nearly as much rain as Victoria plus another 247.4cm of snow! And that’s despite being at a more southern latitude!! Ottawa is basically getting all the rain that Victoria gets PLUS all the snow that Calgary gets (give ‘r take) .