Past IEM Features tagged: cdd
April CDDs
24 Apr 2025 05:30 AMWednesday felt a bit like early summer with afternoon temperatures near 80°F, a noticeable increase in humidity, and some festering late afternoon thunderstorms. The featured chart presents monthly Cooling Degree Days (CDD)s for Des Moines since 2006. The start year of the chart has no significance other than to keep the plot legible. CDDs can be computed in a number of ways, but for the purpose of this chart it is simply the average daily temperature minus 60°F and always at least zero in value, so no negative numbers. CDDs are difficult to accumulate during April due to overnight low temperatures typically being well below 60°F and thus pulling the average significantly down. The chart remarkably shows the largest value during the first four month of the year period happening during the epic warmth of March 2012!
Voting:
Good: 11
Bad: 1
Tags: cdd
Monthly CDDs
01 Sep 2021 05:20 AMWe have somehow made it to the start of a new month, so it is a good time to look back on August! The featured chart presents monthly computed cooling degree day (CDD base 60°F) totals for Des Moines. This metric attempts to capture air conditioning demand with higher totals indicating more demand / warmer air temperatures. The total for this August came in above the previous month of July, which is a bit uncommon as shown by the chart back to 2002. Looking back on previous Septembers, we find plenty of accumulated CDDs and so we are by no means done with summer time warmth. The near term forecast though does have a taste of fall with very pleasant temperatures expected over the coming seven days.
Voting:
Good: 8
Bad: 1
Abstain: 1
Tags: cdd