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Historical Rainfall in NYC (1869-Present)

A data visualization exploring over 150 years of precipitation patterns in New York City

About This Project

This visualization tracks New York City's rainfall patterns from 1869 to the present day, revealing how precipitation has changed over more than 150 years. I chose to do this project, because, well, it has been raining in the city for about a week now– and I think all New Yorkers are facing the downstream effects emotionally (water pun!).

Each line represents a specific month's rainfall amount, with color intensity indicating precipitation levels. Darker colors represent higher rainfall, while lighter colors show less.

Methodology

This visualization uses historical weather data from the National Weather Service and NOAA, collected at Central Park's weather station—one of the longest operating weather stations in the United States. The NWS uploads the annual rainfall averages going this far back in PDF form? so I had to do a spreadsheet by hand.