Weather Data Interpretation (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE Geography)

Interpreting Weather & Climate Data

Climate graphs

• A climate graph shows mean monthly temperatures and precipitation rates over 30 years

• They can be local, national, or global  

• Precipitation is always shown as a bar graph and temperature as a line graph

How to read a climate graph

• Describe the overall shape of the graph:

  • Is the temperature line steep or gentle?

  • Are there changes throughout the year?

  • Always mention the months but do not give a month-by-month account

• Look for extremes: 

  • Note anomalies—something that isn't following a trend

  • Summer has the hottest months and winter the coolest (Spring and Autumn are not usually discussed)

  • Note the highest and lowest temperature and rainfall, plus the month in which they occur

  • Remember to quote units, like Celsius or millimetres

• Name the season with the most and least rainfall

  • Equatorial climate regions have no seasons but refer to seasons in other locations

  • Remember that the southern hemisphere's seasons are opposite to the northern hemisphere

    • Summer in Australia is from November to March 

    • Summer in Europe is from June to September 

• Calculate the temperature range by subtracting the lowest number from the highest

• Add monthly rainfall totals to calculate annual rainfall

  • Divide this by 12 to find the average monthly rainfall

Dispersion graphs

• Useful for comparing sets of data 

• Also illustrates whether the data forms groups or is dispersed (spread)

• Values are shown on the vertical axis

• Can also be used to present the upper and lower values along with the mean, median, mode and extreme values

Reading a dispersion graph

• Read the title to see what the graph is showing

• Read and understand what each axis represents

• Describe the overall pattern of the graph

• Identify anomalies in the data

• Complete any statistical analysis such as the mean, median and range 

Wind rose

• The direction of wind for a specific place is shown on a wind rose

• Made of circles that radiate rectangles representing points of a compass

• The rectangles' lengths show how many days or times the wind blew in that direction

• The centre of the rose displays the number of days or hours with no wind

Wind barbs

• Wind barbs on a weather map indicate the direction and strength of the wind.

• Barbs point to the direction the wind is travelling from

• The tip of the arrow shows the wind's direction

• Half barbs represent 5 knots, full barbs = 10 knots and flags = 50 knots

• A combination of these symbols shows overall speed of the wind and from where it originates from

  • A double flag = 100 knots

  • A double flag and 3 full barbs with a half barb = 135 knots

Isoline and choropleth maps

• Isohyets are lines joining places with the same amount of rainfall

• Isotherms join places with the same temperature

• Isobars join places with the same pressure

• Isoline maps become choropleth isoline maps when shaded between the isolines

  • Shading is progressive from light to dark

  • The heaviest (darkest) shading is for the largest value

Synoptic charts

• Meteorological station readings are plotted on synoptic charts

• They can show some or all of the following:

  • wind speed

  • wind direction

  • pressure patterns

  • weather fronts

  • cloud cover

  • temperatures