Crushers, it is yet again another weekend in the prime time climbing season here in The South where the weather is just not cooperating. Are you tired of wondering why it always decides to rain on the weekend even though it is sunny all week long? Captain Crush has been working on
Unfortunately, society makes the majority of us sit inside during the day for 5 (or more) days every week. We stare out a window all week at the cool, crisp conditions and see nothing but blue
Instead of heading to a gym, we decided to compile some historical weather data from the past few years here in the Chattanooga area. This ended up yielding some surprising and insightful results. If the community finds this interesting we might extend this to other areas and parameters.
So What Did We Do?
This was one of those late night things that popped up with checking the weather report for the next
Wow, Tuesday through Friday looks epic! Wait… The weekend looks like $H!T again! WTF? I wonder if there is some statical
Conditions Queen aka Captain Crushsignifgant difference between weather on the Weekend and Weekdays?
Unfortunately, the quickest and easiest way to compile all this data was by hand (please if there are any programmers out there that are interested in automating this HMU). The site used to gather all the data was Weather Underground. Before anyone brings it up, yes a mistake or two was definitely made during the collection of this data, however, it should have not
This research had two main goals in mind:
- Determine if it rains on the weekends more than weekdays
- See if “Prime” Climbing days fall on weekdays more than weekends
This research also presented a few other insights about climbing in The South:
- Insights about the seasons and how the first good day of the year is very consistent
- How many good conditions days we actually get in any given year
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Predictions?
The climbing community is filled with very intelligent individuals. Considering the facts, does it really make sense that there could be some correlation between weather and the day of the week?
Weather is a completely natural thing that humans cannot directly control on a day to day basis. Alternatively, calendar days are a human creation, and for all intents and purposes, completely arbitrary.
So maybe it’s just a figment of our imagination, some type of physiological trait that makes us think that Mother Nature is working against us.
On the other hand, one could argue that humans do make a huge impact on the world, and our schedules could affect the weather and a cyclical basis. In other words, factories and traffic jams during the week could make micro changes to the weather that ultimately affect the weekend. It’s a stretch, but let’s find out for sure.
The Data/Results
For this test we looked on two factors: Rainfall and Temperature.
To consider a day “Rainy” it must have had a recorded rainfall of 0.05″ or greater. This would be equivalent to a half hour of light rain: source. Many of us have climbed during a day like this here in The South. If it rained for 5 minutes and you wait an hour sometimes things dry out. For our western sandstone counterparts, you will want to check with your local community but typically climbing sandstone when wet is a huge no-no!
To consider a day “Primo” it must have recorded 0.00″ of rainfall and the high must have been less than 60 F.
Note: During this test we did NOT look at the weather day to day. If it rained 3″ the day before and 0″ the next day we considered it a dry day even though in reality it may not have been. The reason for this is there was no easy way to tell what the actual condition of the rock was on a given day, only the weather.
The dates examined where January 2013 to December 2018. All data was collected at the Lovell Field Airport (Station: KCHA) in Chattanooga TN.
Rainy Days (Weekend vs Weekday) All Year
The following data set is the overall rainy days for the last 6 years split up between weekends and weekdays. The right two columns show the data normalized to compare the percentage of days it rains for each category.
| Year | Rain (Weekday) | Rain (Weekend) | Rainy Weekday % | Rainy Weekend % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | 66 | 39 | 25% | 37% |
| 2014 | 63 | 30 | 24% | 29% |
| 2015 | 79 | 28 | 30% | 27% |
| 2016 | 47 | 15 | 18% | 14% |
| 2017 | 71 | 27 | 27% | 26% |
| 2018 | 73 | 29 | 28% | 28% |
| Average | 67 | 28 | 26% | 27% |
| Std. Dev. | 11.06 | 7.69 | 0.04 | 0.07 |
| High | 79 | 39 | 30% | 37% |
| Low | 47 | 15 | 18% | 14% |
As you can see over the last 6 years the data shows only a 1% difference between weekdays and weekends. This means that there is no statistical proof that it rains more on the weekend than the weekday. If we went back 25 years instead of 6 the data should approach almost the exact same point.
So what does this mean? It rains roughly once every 4 days. So out of 2 weekend it most likely will rain one time. When it’s put this way it makes sense way we think it rains often on the weekends, its because it actually rains on average every other weekend.
But, it doesn’t rain as much during climbing season right? Let’s find out!
Rainy Days (Weekend vs Weekday) Season
The season in The South is roughly the half way through November to the end of March (see table below). During the last 6 season the first good day has been on average November 15th and the last good day has been March 27th
| Year | First Good Day | Last Good Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | Oct 23 | Apr 3 |
| 2014 | Nov 1 | Mar 26 |
| 2015 | Nov 15 | Mar 28 |
| 2016 | Nov 20 | Mar 21 |
| 2017 | Oct 29 | Mar 16 |
| 2018 | Oct 21 | Apr 8 |
So now that we know when the good conditions are let’s do the exact same analysis as we did before and just eliminate all those hot and humid months.
| Season | Rain (Weekday) | Rain (Weekend) | Rainy Weekday % | Rainy Weekend % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 24 | 13 | 22% | 30% |
| 3 | 24 | 11 | 22% | 26% |
| 4 | 32 | 7 | 30% | 16% |
| 5 | 28 | 10 | 26% | 23% |
| 6 | 17 | 13 | 16% | 30% |
| Average | 25 | 11 | 23% | 25% |
| Std. Dev. | 5.57 | 2.49 | 0.05 | 0.06 |
| High | 32 | 13 | 30% | 30% |
| Low | 17 | 7 | 16% | 16% |
This data shows a slightly less chance of rain during the good climbing months. It also shows a 2% gap between weekends and weekday, however, this is most likely due to shrinking our sample size. To know for sure we will need to process more data (let us know if you want us to do this in the comment below).
Prime Time Climbing Days
When we starting looking at the data this is not something we were trying to analyze, nevertheless, this data might be more useful to the true crushers out there than the previous stuff.
Just to recap this is a count of the days where there was 0″ precipitation and a high of less than 60 F. These are the days that climber in The South wait for all summer!
| Season | Primo (Weekday) | Primo (Weekend) | Primo Weekday % | Primo Weekend % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013-2014 | 51 | 17 | 47% | 40% |
| 2014-2015 | 49 | 16 | 45% | 37% |
| 2015-2016 | 36 | 17 | 33% | 40% |
| 2016-2017 | 31 | 12 | 29% | 28% |
| 2017-2018 | 52 | 12 | 48% | 28% |
| Average | 44 | 15 | 41% | 34% |
| Std. Dev. | 9.63 | 2.59 | 0.09 | 0.06 |
| High | 52 | 17 | 48% | 40% |
| Low | 31 | 12 | 29% | 28% |
Alright, we might have something finally! Over the last 5 seasons (the seasons here cross over calendar years) we have a fairly significant difference between good climbing days on weekends and weekdays. Overall a 7% difference.
Now as it was stated before, this number would probably converge on the same number as we look at larger data sets.
Another thing to note is the variance between seasons. The large discrepancy is the 2015-2016 season and the 2017-2018 season. Weekend warriors got 5 less climbing days during that later seasons, whereas, dirtbags (and alternative schedule folks) got 16 more days.
Conclusion
Working sucks, don’t do it, just climb! BYEEEEEE
JK – Comedy aside, the one main takeaway from this should be that you should appreciate every good climbing day that Mother Nature gives us.
For those of you who are tied to a desk for 40+ hours a week, you might only get 15 really good climbing days a year (not taking into account vacation or holidays). Train hard during the week and get ready to crush on the weekend!
Like this article? Want to see this done for another climbing area? Have questions or concerns? Leave us a comment in the box below!
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