Hey, ich bin Ignacio, ein Datenreporter bei USA TODAY. Mit meinem Team haben wir Wetterdaten aus 70 Jahren analysiert, um zu vergleichen, wie unsere aktuellen Winter mit denen Mitte der 1950er Jahre abschneiden. Es stellte sich heraus, dass Ihr Opa Recht hatte: Früher waren die Winter kälter und länger.
Fast jede einzelne von uns analysierte Stadt erlebt weniger Frosttage. Auch diese beginnen später und enden viel früher. Sie werden auch nicht so kalt.
Auch wenn Sie kein Fan der kalten Jahreszeit sind, kann dies so viele Dinge stören: Wasserreserven, Mücken- und Zeckenverbreitung, Ahornbäume sowie die Kultur und Lebensgrundlage des Wintersports.
Sie fragen sich, wie sich Ihr Landkreis durch den Klimawandel verändert? Das können Sie in unserer interaktiven Karte sehen: https://www.usatoday.com/graphics/interactives/how-climate-change-is-impacting-winters/
Und sagen Sie uns, wie sich kürzere Winter auf Sie auswirken.
Von usatoday
21 Kommentare
For this story, we used a daily temperature dataset from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration called nClimGrid-Daily. It provides estimates for square areas about 5 kilometers wide (roughly 3 miles).
For every U.S. city or town with a population over 100,000, we used the data from the grid cell closest to its center. We then identified each day that the low temperature reached 32 degrees Fahrenheit or colder. We grouped these freezing days by “water year,” which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30 of the following year (think of it as the fiscal year used in climate and water research). For each city and year (1956-2025), we measured several indicators: the total number of freezing days, the first and last freezing day of the season, the longest stretch of consecutive freezing days, and the coldest temperature recorded.
To understand how these measures have changed over time, we ran linear regressions for all cities that had sufficient data, which we defined as at least one freezing day in at least half the years – mirroring methods used by Climate Central and other researchers. This approach helps distinguish long-term changes from natural year‑to‑year variability.
We also tested whether the trends were statistically significant. We repeated a similar analysis at the county level. Counties that do not experience freezes every year were included to allow for broader exploration of the data. You can read a full description of our methods and find our code on GitHub. – Ignacio from USA TODAY
What happened to Virginia Beach?
Ooooh look at the overachievers Canada and Mexico keeping their climate stable.
https://www.usatoday.com/graphics/interactives/how-climate-change-is-impacting-winters/
Weird, I don’t see my county – South Glamorgan – on this map 🤔
Midwest winters are much nicer now. Thanks, climate change!
Can vouch for Ohio. I’m 22 and have had arthritis for the past ten years. I definitely feel a difference the past few years in the winters. It’s great for my functioning, but I really try not to think of the implications.
I live in one of those black counties in Western NY. Even in just the 27 years I’ve lived here the winters have become noticeably milder. A couple years ago we hit 70 degrees in February. It was uncanny. It’s unsettling to see the effects of global warming so obviously.
love how my county in the desert is pure white 😂 (i’m so fuckin cold. turn the sun back on, it’s almost May gdi!)
Freezing day is a relative term. Scientifically you could refer to a freezing point under 1 atmospheric pressure (0 degree C, 32 F) but water doesn’t freeze right away. Also our body doesn’t feel cold enough until strong wind gust is accompanied. Back in the day was colder due to many factors (work outside, less insulated clothing or equipments, etc). But if you look at a broader environmental changes that accompanies the temperature swift, then yes it makes a little sense.
That’s not my country… thank god
Here in Florida, we never really got freezes, but I can tell that the winters were colder 30 years ago…and the summer’s didn’t feel as hot as they do now.
I recently moved to Southeast Michigan. Long-term residents I’ve known have noted significantly milder winters compared to when they were growing up. This data definitely corroborates their observations.
Why freezing days to represent climate change?
According to MIT’s EN-ROADS climate policy simulator, [here’s where we’re headed without major policy changes](https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html).
According to the IPCC, [here’s what’ll happen if we hit 1.5 ºC warming](https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/).
According to the team at Drawdown, [here’s how you can personally do the most good for the climate](https://drawdown.org/shift).
Good to know that Alaska doesn’t have to worry any of this, or that we’re apart of the US, apparently. 🙄
No AK/HI means the data is not beautiful — especially for a map on weather changes. It’d be even better if we could see PR and the other U.S. territories. We’re responsible for their welfare as well.
Original comment: *I could be wrong but it looks to me like you are using data for two single years, 1956 and 2025. So you can’t say from this whether ‚winters were generally colder back then‘ and of course the regional details of the map would really only apply to this one specific pair of years.*
*Maybe you could use averages over 20-year periods, so like 2005-2025 vs. 1955-1975 averages to remove the factors of single-year weather variability.*
**Edit:** After digging into the methods published it looks like they controlled for this and that the data shown is actually output of a linear regression rather than a simple two year comparison. This is much better than what I thought but I think I’d still rather just have a comparison of interval averages than two observations on a line of best fit.
You killed my father; prepare to die.
This map is a bit funny for where I’m at. We’d have to have freezing weather in the first place…
Explains why the ski season has sucked balls in the northeast (except this past winter) for the last decade or so.
Interesting, I wonder why the West has been impacted way less than the East