This was sent to me as a quick-and-dirty way to find places with similar climates. It looks like it might be a little better than straight up zones (which don’t account for rainfall patterns and temperatures much) and maybe if it uses cities it’s a little easier to fine tune than some of the alternative systems out there, but I haven’t had a chance to look at it much. I’m leaving it here to look at later: Find cities with similar climate
(I am somewhat spoiled by the British Columbia biogeoclimatic zones so I love tools like this)
Thanks for the tool! It confirmed what I already knew, that France, Spain, Italy, Japan, etc. have similar climates as me. I tend to prefer French and Mediterranean cuisine, so I favor varieties developed in those areas.
Andrew Millison wrote a book about identifying areas with similar climates, both current climates and projected future climates. He goes into some theory about how to make use of that information too. It’s free for download.
G9, Cold and mesic. Didn’t know what mesic mean so had to look it up. I think it’s mostly true because of long winters and weak sun most of the year that doesn’t evaporate water. In terms of actual rainfall it’s not that wet and hotter summers mean drought. Most of proxies it gives are in Russia. Even Siperia is slightly warmer, atleast by summer temps. This tool is definetely more accurate than growing zones although I was very aware of similar climates. Always had interest in different places, have lived abroad and done lots of googling, especially those places that would have similar climate. Would really like some map/zoning based on growing degree unit and/or growing degree units during frost free season. There seems to be some maps, but nothing really universal and easy to compare.
This seems pretty cool, but there are no cities with data in this tool that near where I’m at. Big data strikes again! My circled area is the relatively high altitude rural region of Central Appalachia. I can probably infer from the nearby data but it is irksome when this happens.
It says Provo, Utah is I6: “Cool temperate and xeric.” Yeah, okay, that sounds fair.
Huh, it lists a lot of cities in Ukraine as having a similar climate to mine. Maybe I should look more closely at those traditional Ukranian varieties on the Experimental Farm Network.
I don’t think Ukraine is as hot and definetely not very dry. There are some areas of sand dunes, but also more wetlands. It’s also called bread basket of Europe because of high concentration of fertile topsoil. I think it’s something like more than the other parts of Europe combined. I remember reading that it might be meters thick when more common is 20-40cm, 60cm if lucky. From Europe inland parts of Spain or Greece and it’s neighboring countries might be better bet. Or parts of Turkey and former soviet states from Georgia to Kazakhstan. Some might have colder winters, but summers are hot and dry there. Although even country of origin might be misleading. Like Iran and Iraq, that are mainly desert, have wetlands too. But there are definetely some dryfarmed varieties that come from dry parts if middle eastern countries. Aleppo pepper atleast and there are some tomatoes that come from that area.
There are so many things that effect climate even within a relatively small geographic area, I have to wonder about the real value of tools such as this one. The river valley below my house just a few miles away but 400 feet lower is quite different, not uncommon for me to have snow when it rains down there. Just a few miles north the terrain of Indiana flattens out and has lots less trees, it’s different there too. The little creek valley on my own place is very different than up here at the house and also different from the big river valley lower down. It gets really cold down there and in summer, blocked from the breezes by the hills and trees, also very hot.
My closest one is G12 and is distinctly warmer, but there are some high def maps floating around the internet-- it’s a machine interpolation that should take elevation into account. I need to wait till I’m at my work computer to open them and pinpoint my exact location, though. Big file!
That’s exactly my status. On that global climate stratification map, my closest city – Duluth, MN is G12. But as you move away from the lake, things get colder fast and even at a 25 minute drive for me, the differences is sometimes dramatic. This is a snippet USDA zones for our area with my location right on the 3b/4a border in yellow while Duluth is solidly in 4b:
L6. Reasonable. On the one hand, I’m spoiled by Sunset’s level of detail for the Los Angeles basin, which this tool doesn’t capture. On the other hand, at that level of detail, there are very few places in the world with similar climate. But you better believe I will try any plant native to/bred for those places (mostly the eastern Mediterranean almost-coast), because I know it will succeed.
I’d take the map with a grain of salt. It says many cities in the deep south are “hot and dry”. “Hot” may be true, but I don’t think anyone familiar with the region would call extremely humid places such as New Orleans or South Carolina “dry”.
My circled area is the relatively high altitude rural region of Central Appalachia. I can probably infer from the nearby data but it is irksome when this happens.
