“Hour-by-Month” climograms as a planning, decison-aid and educational tool in the visualization, summarization, and interpretation of visbility and ceilings' data

This study describes and illustrates the use of “Hour-by-Month” climograms as a means of visualizing and interpreting single-station visibility and ceilings' climatological data. Much of this falls under the category of “Flying-Weather” data.

Climatological data of this kind usually exist in tabular or digitized form, but the availability of desktop data analysis and visualization software makes it readily practical to present the data alternatively in single-page graphical layout form, depicting the seasonal and diurnal climatological variation of a parameter or parameters of interest. This also lends itself to effective visual presentation on the web.

In this presentation mode, calendar month comprises the y-axis, hour of the day the x-axis. Upon the grid, variables such as Percent-VFR, Percent Fog, Median Ceilings' Heights, etc., are contoured. Multiple contours can also be utilized, various color schemes employed, and sunrise/sunset demarcation curves overlain. Climograms sets of these kind are demonstrated for a number of first-order stations across the United States.