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Abstract:
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The question of interest, "Has New England’s weather patterns been changing over the last 10 years?", is a relevant subtopic in today's ongoing discussion about global climate change. It is a more specific section of the debate and the goal of this study is to determine if this is the case using weather data in the region collected by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and other sources. Data pertaining to snow depth, snowfall and precipitation amounts were used to outline trends over the years. Time series plots were created in order to visualize data, and it was found that “cold snaps” have become more common over the years. Another finding was that snow is falling later in the Winter season than in previous years. In addition, time series analysis was performed in an attempt to glean any insights about weather in the near future. The seasonal ARIMA models were created for the different weather datasets. After finding an “optimal” model for each, snowfall and snow depth forecasts were acquired and compared to dates excluded from the training datasets. The result was an adequate model for each that accurately predicted the majority of the recorded weather.
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