Weather: PA vs CO

I grew up in Pennsylvania. Yay!

Then I moved to Colorado. Yay!

Since I moved west, everyone back east has been asking me about the weather out here.  Ok, mostly those who have never visited Colorado.  You see, apparently everyone on the east coast believes that Denver is high on a mountain top.  Not so!   Here's a spoiler for those who haven't visited yet: Denver's nickname is the Queen City of the Plains.  Plains?  Yes, plains.  It's flat here.  Flat in a way that my rolling-hills-of-the-mid-Atlantic-Appalachians self couldn't imagine until I first visited.  Vast and FLAT:

Looking east, past the 'burbs southeast of Denver.
At least it's not Iowa.

But if you look west:

Mountains!

Central Park off of MLK Jr Blvd

Anyway, living in the middle of a continent and above 5000', the weather patterns are certainly different than living 2 hours away from the Atlantic Ocean. So let's compare the data!

Allentown, PA

	Units	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average High	°F	36	40	50	62	72	80	85	83	75	64	53	41	62
Average Low	°F	21	23	30	40	49	59	64	62	54	42	34	25	42
Precipitation	"	3	3	3	4	4	4	5	4	5	4	3	4	45
Snowfall	"	11	11	5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	6	34
Average Relative Humidity	%	69	67	64	62	66	67	68	71	73	71	71	71	68
Mean Daily Sunshine	Hours	5	6	7	7	8	9	9	8	7	7	5	4	7

Denver, CO

	Units	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average High	°F	44	46	54	61	71	82	89	86	78	65	52	43	64
Average Low	°F	19	21	27	35	44	53	59	58	49	37	26	18	37
Precipitation	"	0	0	1	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	15
Snowfall	"	7	6	10	6	1	0	0	0	1	4	9	10	53
Average Relative Humidity	%	56	56	54	51	54	52	51	52	51	51	59	59	54
Mean Daily Sunshine	Hours	7	8	8	9	9	11	11	10	9	8	7	6	9

Comparison

	City	Units	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Year
Average High	Allentown, PA	°F	36	40	50	62	72	80	85	83	75	64	53	41	62
	Denver, CO		44	46	54	61	71	82	89	86	78	65	52	43	64
Average Low	Allentown, PA	°F	21	23	30	40	49	59	64	62	54	42	34	25	42
	Denver, CO		19	21	27	35	44	53	59	58	49	37	26	18	37
Precipitation	Allentown, PA	"	3	3	3	4	4	4	5	4	5	4	3	4	45
	Denver, CO		0	0	1	2	2	2	2	2	1	1	1	1	15
Snowfall	Allentown, PA	"	11	11	5	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	6	34
	Denver, CO		7	6	10	6	1	0	0	0	1	4	9	10	53
Average Relative Humidity	Allentown, PA	%	69	67	64	62	66	67	68	71	73	71	71	71	68
	Denver, CO		56	56	54	51	54	52	51	52	51	51	59	59	54
Mean Daily Sunshine*	Allentown, PA	Hours	5	6	7	7	8	9	9	8	7	7	5	4	7
	Denver, CO		7	8	8	9	9	11	11	10	9	8	7	6	9

As you can see, the basic differences are:

• Average High: Allentown's average high is a few degrees cooler than Denver's average high.
• Average Low: Allentown's average low is a few degrees warmer than Denver's average low.
• Snowfall: Denver receives an average of 53" of snow per year, while Allentown only receives 34", but...
• Precipitation: Allentown receives 45" of precipitation per year, while Denver only receives 15".  
• Humidity: It's pretty dry in Denver... 54% average relative humidity for the year, with the winter being the most humid.  Allentown is at 68% average for the year.
• Sunshine: Denver is the clear winner here, with 9 sunshine hours per day (mean).

Humidity and sunshine hours are the biggest differences.  Allentown has overcast weather for much of the winter season, and is pretty humid all year.  Denver's winters are much more sunny (though both cities are at nearly the same latitude), and is generally not very humid at all.  Denver's general lack of humidity contributes to that 53" of snow melting into less than 15" of water.  Spring and summer rainstorms in PA can last a week, whereas July in Denver brings the daily 30-minute thunderstorms, followed by clear skies and sunshine.

Notes

Allentown's temperature/precipitation/snowfall measurements were taken at Lehigh Valley International Airport (1981-2010).  This is pretty much in the center of the Lehigh Valley metro area.

Denver's temperature/precipitation/snowfall measurements were taken at Stapleton International Airport (1981-1995) and Denver International Airport (1995-2010). While Stapleton is quite a bit closer to the city than the new Denver International Airport (19 miles closer!), both sets of measurements were taken relatively far from the actual urban area, which is generally a few degrees warmer than the surrounding areas, and gets a different amount of precipitation. NOAA does have data from Denver Water (near downtown), but it starts in 1997 as opposed to 1981, which is when both Denver's and Allentown's airport data begin. For a consistent comparison, I chose to use the Denver Airport data.

For your enjoyment, here is a map of Denver's new and old airports:

View Denver Airport Locations in a larger map

Data Sources

• Temperature/Precipitation/Snowfall: NOAA
• Denver
• Allentown
• Average Relative Humidity: NOAA
• US Cities
• Mean Daily Sunshine Hours: Hong Kong Observatory
• Denver
• Philadelphia (closest available measurement to Allentown)

Traditional Korean Ghetto

I went to Korea back in May, and then never blogged about it. So now I'm blogging about it. Yay! 

Most of the trip was to help establish an exchange program between my alma mater and SolBridge International Business School in Daejeon.  We spent a lot of time on campus, stayed in the dorms with current students, and became good friends with some of the awesome people we met through the school.  One evening while walking from the school to Daejeon's Old Downtown, a friend asked if we had visited the ghetto.  Ghetto?  She took us around a corner we had all walked past a dozen times without blinking, and we were in the past.

Not a ghetto in the sense of dangerous-place-you-should-never-go-alone, this ghetto is one of the disappearing neighborhoods where you can still see old style Korean apartments, fonts that haven't been used in decades [those deemed uncool, I suppose], and a glimpse of Korea's past.  I noticed a pretty big lifestyle difference between urban and rural locations [similar to the US, really], but this older sort of neighborhood seemed to bridge the gap a bit.

I'm sure you'd rather look at photos than have me continue to ramble on...
You can view a few more on flickr:

Documentaries On North Korea

Hooray for YouTube! Here are two documentaries about North Korea that I recently found, both showing a different view of the country.

Seven Days In North Korea
First up is a 4-part documentary that really shows North Korea in the way that it hopes to be portrayed: a paradise.

There are some comments on YouTube saying that this film doesn't show the real North Korea, but I think it's an interesting view of how the country wants to be seen.  Whether that is reality or not doesn't really pertain to this film, as the journalist is simply being guided around tourist attractions.









North Korea: A Day In The Life
This 3ish-part documentary takes you through a day in the life of a factory worker and her daughter in North Korea.  Part 4 is a bonus montage of North Korean anti-US sentiments.

State High Point - New Jersey

New Jersey
High Point State Park
Just southeast of Port Jervis, NY lies the highest point in New Jersey: High Point.  The Appalachian Trail runs right near High Point (1803' above sea level), which is also the highest peak in the Kittatinny Mountains!  From the top you can see three states: New York, Pennsylvania, and of course New Jersey.
I'm not going to reinvent the wheel, so you can read about High Point on Wikipedia!


It was cold and windy up there, so we took a few photos and then took off for Port Jervis.  We went to Len & Jo's and had some delicious pizza.  So many cheeses!  Along the way we stopped for a photo of the "Oldest Church".


And what would Port Jervis be without some cool trains?


Highpointing Swag
If you're interested in buying some stuff to commemorate your high point visits, well, CafePress to the rescue: State Highpoint Swag!

Bike Theft in Denver

Bike theft is on the rise in Denver.  As of 2008, Kryptonite listed Denver as the #7 Worst US City for Bike Theft.  This blog post digs into the bike crime data made available by the City and County of Denver.

Bike Theft By Neighborhood
Using the reporting tool on the Denver Crime Offenses Website, I downloaded data for each neighborhood in the city/county, from 3/27/11 through 9/25/11.

I compiled all of the bike theft data into this map, showing the best and worst neighborhoods in Denver for bike theft.

Click the image to view full size

So for the first part of 2011, the 10 worst neighborhoods for bike theft are:

Neighborhood	Bikes Stolen
CBD	129
Union Station	89
Five Points	76
Capitol Hill	72
Highland	41
North Capitol Hill	38
Speer	38
Auraria	34
Lincoln Park	27
Civic Center	24

And the 11 best, all with 0 bikes stolen are:

Neighborhood	Bikes Stolen
Chaffee Park	0
Cory - Merrill	0
Country Club	0
Globeville	0
Harvey Park	0
Kennedy	0
Mar Lee	0
Marston	0
Montclair	0
Valverde	0
Wellshire	0

The top 10 makes sense to me.  They're all neighborhoods with a lot of traffic (pedestrian, vehicle, bicycle, etc), and places where there is generally a lot going on.

I expected the areas around the University of Denver to be a bit worse than they were, especially since I've heard numerous stories of vehicle break-ins on university property.

Neighborhood	Bikes Stolen
University	18
Platt Park	16
Rosedale	3
University Park	12

Also note, there was 1 bike stolen from DIA.  I still think it's crazy to ride your bike to the airport; it's not a bike-friendly area at all.  It's possible that it was stolen off of a luggage carousel, I suppose.

Bike Theft Map of Denver
I geocoded the data from the Denver Crime Offenses Website using BatchGeo.  The map below will give you a slightly better idea of where bike theft is most common, as far as specific streets and attractions that may be targeted.  For example, the 16th St Mall.

 Click HERE to view in a new tab

I Want To Ride My Bicycle
I won't let bike thieves stop me from doing what I want... Riding my bike!

Electric Utility Outage Maps - Hurricane Irene Edition

I love utility maps.  You have been warned. 

A few days after Hurricane Irene took a swing at the east coast I looked at the outage maps for some of the electric utilities there.  I had heard reports of widespread power outages from news channels back east, but I'd also heard from friends that Irene just wasn't as bad as they had expected (they were in PA, which you'll see in a moment wasn't hit as hard as other areas).  These following outage maps show the huge impact the storm had on electric utilities.  The screenshots were taken on August 30th; about 2 days after Irene hit MD, NJ, PA, NY, etc.

Here's Hurricane Irene's path:

Ok!  Let's start in the southern part of the Northeast...


Delmarva Power (DELaware MARyland VirginiA, for those unfamiliar) had just under 2500 customers without power, as of 2 days after the storm. 

Atlantic City Electric, which covers a large portion of southern New Jersey, had over 4000 customers without power.

PSE&G had 40,000+ customers without power
(note: estimated using low end of the key scale).

Jersey Central Power & Light had over 60,000+ customers without power
(note: estimated using low end of the key scale).

Specifically, Monmouth County alone had over 57,000 people without power.

Let's head inland to check out the situation in Pennsylvania.
Met-Ed and PPL both look pretty decent, at least compared to NJ.

Highlighting the hardest hit part of PPL's territory

ConEdison had 33,000+ customers without power.

Here is a roll-over breakdown of where the most affected customers live:

Long Island Power Authority was hit pretty hard as well.

Connecticut Light & Power... This map really shows how hard CT was hit by the storm.  There were a few areas that had 100% of customers without power. 

National Grid

Central Maine Power's website is a bit different. Rather than having an interactive, fairly real-time map of outages, they had a series of images showing outages from 8/28 through 8/30 (when I downloaded information).  I strung their images together in an animation so you can see the change over time, and when the most people were without power.  I apologize for the jumpiness of the image... their maps were all different, and for a quick blog entry I wasn't about to spend hours adjusting each image.  Sorry!

You may need to click through to see the animated image.

If you're still with me, I hope you enjoyed the outage maps!  It was fun to see not only the heavily impacted areas, but also to check out the different types of outage maps electric utilities use on their websites.

License Plate County Codes!

I've had this post planned for a while, but this weekend I came across a new reason to finally finish the post. 

Nebraska License Plate County Codes
Aside from states like Tennessee, Georgia, and others that actually list the registrant's county on the license plate, Nebraska makes it almost as easy to figure out where someone is from, just by looking at their license plate.  In 1922 Nebraska instituted a 1- or 2-digit county code on license plates for passenger vehicles.  So if Nebraska 66-**** cuts you off on the highway, you know to look for him at home in Cherry County, NE.  Unfortunately for you, Cherry County is the largest county in the state, and is bigger than Connecticut.

There are a few counties that no longer use the county code system.  Not coincidentally, they are the state's three most populous counties: Douglas, Sarpy and Lancaster.  Dakota county had discussed discontinuing use of the county code as well, but in the end they opted to keep county code 70 on their plates. 

If you'd like a list of all of the Nebraska county codes, Wikipedia has one here.   

Other States With County Codes
County codes are more common than I had originally thought!  Not all of them are as obvious as Nebraska's though... I first noticed this because 1 or 2 digits at the beginning of a license plate has to be a code for something, right?  Here's a breakdown of the county codes I've encountered while writing this blog:

• Some states use the same 1- or 2- digit code system that Nebraska does.  They are: Alabama, Montana, South Dakota, and Wyoming. 
• Idaho has a cool system: the first letter of the county, with a number in front of it to differentiate it from other counties that begin with the same letter.  If the county is the only one that begins with that letter, the code is the letter by itself.  For example: 1A is Ada county 2A is Adams county and E is Elmore county. 
• Indiana's county coding system is complicated.  Not as bad as New York, but too much for me to get into in this brief blog!
• Kansas' county codes are "two letters based on the first letter of and another letter in the name of the county", according to Wikipedia.
• Mississippi has county codes that match up phonetically to the county name (in many cases, anyway).  But who cares?!  Their plates have the county name on the bottom!
• New Jersey only does county coding on "courtesy" plates, which are given to those with political connections.
• New York has the most complicated county coding system.  It started in 1973 with each county having a designated letter block.  Just look at this cross-reference on Wikipedia.  So much to remember!!
• Ohio has a different way of going about it.  They have county codes on a sticker in the lower left corner of the plate, with the county name in small text below the code number.

Carhenge
At the beginning of this post I mentioned that I had a new inspiration for finally finishing this post.  That inspiration is CARHENGE!  This past weekend I visited Carhenge, which is a replica of Stone Henge... made of cars. 

Carhenge itself is pretty cool, but inside the souvenir shop is a license plate collection.  There are plates from almost every US state, and Canadian province and territory.  Of course since Carhenge is in Nebraska, there is a huge collection of Nebraska license plates from over the years.  Awesome!

If you're nowhere near Nebraska but would still like to see samples of license plates, WorldLicensePlates is a great source [and not just for Nebraska!].