There are thousands of pairs of cities with formal “twinning” agreements to promote worldwide friendship and encourage tourism and commercial ties between the cities. For example, New York City has nine sister cities, including London, Beijing, Jerusalem, and Tokyo.
But what if cities chose who to “twin” with based on how similar they were climatologically? What international cities are “weather twins” with cities within the United States?
Here are five American cities and their international weather twin.
Krasnodar is Russia’s 13th largest city and has a climate almost identical to the United States’ largest city. Krasnodar is located in southern Russia on the Kuban River. It is about 50 miles from the Black Sea and 100 miles from Sochi, the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympic Games.
Krasnodar and New York City have seasonal temperatures that are nearly identical. In terms of precipitation, the two cities see similar snowfall amounts, with NYC getting nearly twice as much rain.
If you find yourself in the capital of Romania, the weather may remind you of America’s Windy City. Though it isn’t quite as windy on average as Chicago, Bucharest winters rival the bitter cold of America’s third-largest city. The two towns share nearly identical seasonal temperatures, with Bucharest having slightly warmer summers and Chicago having slightly colder winters.
The two cities also see similar precipitation, with Chicago averaging slightly more rain and Bucharest getting marginally more snow.
Bucharest has a latitude only 3 degrees north of Chicago, meaning their day lengths throughout the year are almost identical.
In northern Australia sits Cairns, a city with a climate similar to Miami, Florida. Both cities are considered tropical and rarely see temperatures dip below 60 degrees.
Because Miami is in the Northern Hemisphere and Cairns is in the Southern Hemisphere, the two cities experience their seasons in opposite months. As a result, the temperature of Miami in February most closely matches Cairns in August, Miami in March most closely matches Cairns in September, etc.
The most significant difference between these two cities is their precipitation totals. Though they each see about the same amount of rain in their respective winter and spring months, Cairns sees far more rain during the summer and autumn. From December to April, Cairns sees 39 inches of rain on average.
Much like Miami, Cairns is susceptible to tropical storms. For example, in 2011, Cairns was hit by tropical cyclone Yasi. Yasi was a category four tropical cyclone when it made landfall in Mission Beach, Australia, and forced thousands of Cairns residents to evacuate.
This set of weather twins includes one city from the Northern Hemisphere and one from the Southern Hemisphere.
Seattle’s most iconic weather feature is the persistent rain that the Emerald City sees consistently. Though the temperatures in Concepción don’t match up with Seattle’s quite as well as some of the other twins on the list, Seattle and Concepción see strikingly similar amounts of rain throughout their seasons.
Both cities see rainfall pick up during the fall months before peaking in November for Seattle and June for Concepción. Then both cities’ rainfall totals steadily decline until mid-summer.
In terms of temperature, Concepción tends to see slightly warmer winters and moderately cooler summers than their weather sister city.
Los Angeles and Perth boast not only similar climates but also similar geographies within their respective countries. Each city is close to the southwest tip of their respective countries and to the west of vast deserts.
Perth and Los Angeles have nearly identical seasonal temperatures, with winter highs in the 60s and summer highs in the 80s. Both cities also experience precipitation in almost the same seasonal pattern, with Perth taking in slightly more rain than the City of Angels.
These two cities have such similar weather patterns that you could even say that in the search for a weather twin, Los Angeles has the “Perth-ect” match.